Argentina: Analysts increase barley crop forecast thanks to substantial rains over past months

Although too late for winter crops, the substantial rains over the past months certainly helped summer crops like barley and wheat, RMI Analytics said in their late July report.

In particular, the rain in north-west Buenos Aires province improved this drought stricken region. On the back of this improving soil moisture situation, RMI’s barley production estimate is increased to 4.54 mln tonnes, up from 4.25 mln tonnes forecast in early July.

Planting progress is 90% and the rainfall is helping the crop get well established but has delayed the seeding of the last 10% in southern Buenos Aires province.

With the slightly disappointing two-row crop in Europe, an Argentine barley crop of 4.5 mln is increasingly critical, the analysts said.

Crop 2022 export licences are 2.7 mln tonnes (around 72% feed/FAQ barley), but for crop 2023 less than 100 thousand tonnes of licences have been declared, and still mostly feed/FAQ barley. For crop 2023 the barley exports forecast for Argentina is increased slightly to 3.1 mln tonnes, which decreases ending stocks despite the small boost in production.

El Nino forecasts indicate a more than 90% probability of higher precipitation during August-October, which would be good for the barley crop.

For crop 2023, prices are stronger in alignment with the global trend, and amidst limited selling by farmers. Another special Soybean Dollar exchange rate has been released by the government, which could contribute further to a general lack of farmer barley selling in new crop.

Interestingly, there has been fresh buying interest (China) for crop 2022 malting barley in the market, and farmer selling of 20 thousand tonnes has ensued. This confirms both open demand from buyers, and the fact that there are small lots of old crop still available (although limited).

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