Virus Hobbles World’s Biggest Soy Exporters With Harvest Nearing

  • Argentine farmers gear up to pick bean crop of 52 million tons
  • Slew of problems for traders as Covid-19 safeguards are sought

Combines harvest soybeans in Correntina, Brazil in 2010.

Photographer: Paulo Fridman/Bloomberg

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The world’s biggest exporters of soybean meal and oil are fending off a slew of logistical hurdles as they rush to get ready for the impending harvest in Argentina.

For the Latin American nation’s soy industry, it’s the toughest start to a harvest in recent memory. Farmers and exporters are bidding to crush beans and ship tens of millions of metric tons of meal and oil at a time when the coronavirus pandemic is disrupting food-supply chains across the globe.