Argentina: Beneficial rain falls in key barley growing areas

Further beneficial rain fell in Buenos Aires province and more importantly in the dry Santa FE and Cordoba regions. While the weather remains very favourable, RMI Analytics’ view is a barley crop size at 4.59 mln tonnes and factors in all the positive crop news, the analysts said in their latest report.

RMI Analytics believe that Argentina barley exports will remain strong in light of the overall global tightness for spring malting barley. Brazil could add to export demand if quality continues to suffer, due to extreme wet conditions. Uruguay’s barley crop is expected to be higher due to increased planted area, with average yields expected from good growing conditions.

Similar to crop 2022, ending stocks should remain at very low levels, despite the increase of 0.5 mln tonnes in production.

Prices are mostly unchanged in a quiet market. Small lots of barley have traded at slightly lower levels but with a general lack of farmer selling, the trade is hesitant. This explains the slight drop in the FAS (farmer bid) value for malting barley.

The willingness of farmers to sell new crop remains low (e.g. currency devaluations concerns), and the entire market awaits the October election results, as a new government is expected.

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