Argentine Soybean Crop Forecast Cut From a Week Ago at Oil World

Argentina’s soybean harvest may be lower than estimated a week ago because of “severe” crop losses in the country’s north, Oil World said.

Production of the oilseed may come to 42 million to 43 million metric tons this year, down as much as 15 percent from a year earlier and less than the 44 million estimated last week, the Hamburg-based researcher said in a report today. Northern provinces including Chaco and Tucuman are having the worst drought in about 50 years, and as much as 900,000 hectares (2.2 million acres) may be abandoned nationwide, it said.

The reduced forecast “is mainly on account of severe crop losses in the north, from where we have just received additional, very alarming reports,” Oil World said. “Harvest results so far show unusually small yields in northern Argentina.”

The South American country is the world’s third-largest soybean exporter after the U.S. and Brazil.

To contact the reporter on this story: Whitney McFerron in London at wmcferron1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Claudia Carpenter at ccarpenter2@bloomberg.net