Brasília – Brazil’s 2014/2015 cereal crop will yield 198.54 million tons, says the sixth survey from the National Supply Company (Conab, in the Portuguese acronym) issued this Tuesday (10th). The estimate has been revised down from 200 million tons in the fifth survey, released last February, but exceeds by 4.98 million tons, or 2.6%, the 193.5 million-ton harvest from last season.
Insufficient rainfall in January was a factor in revising down the estimate. However, Conab believes that going forward, the trend should be one of recovery, since the impact upon crops was milder than expected. The climate is expected to stabilize from now on. Regarding soybean, traditionally the crop highlight, Conab has reported that weather-related issues have detracted from crop yields across the Southeast, part of the Midwest, and the area known as Matopiba, spanning Maranhão, Tocantins, Piauí and Bahia.
Nevertheless, soybean production is set to exceed that of the 2013/2014 crop. Soy is expected to yield 93.26 million tons, up 8.3% from the last crop. On the other hand, first-crop maize output should be down 6.1% from the prior harvest, to 31.65 million tons. Farmers have favoured soy due to its better pricing.
In Rio de Janeiro, the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) has issued its second 2015 crop estimate for cereals, legumes and oilseeds. The organization is expecting output to reach an all-time high 199.6 tons, up 3.5% from 192.8 million tons in 2014. Conab bases its projections around the crop year, whereas the IBGE works with the calendar year.
The IBGE has also revised down its forecasts, but still expects a record-breaking crop. The forecast is down 0.9% (1.8 million tons) from January.
According to the IBGE, out of the estimates for the 26 main crops, 12 have gone up compared with last year, the highlights being cereals such as oats, up 23.6%; barley (23.1%); first-crop bean (9.6%); soybean (9.8%) and wheat (21.6%).
The 14 products whose forecasts have gone down include cotton (-7.8%); third-crop potato (-19.4%), second-crop maize (7.5%), sorghum (6.2%) and triticale (10.5%).
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
