South America Calling

Brazil's soybean harvest is reaching its final stages with fieldwork concentrated in the south and the northeast.

Rain hampered the harvest in the south last week but it still progressed to 90% complete across Brazil, slightly behind the 91% registered at the same point last year, according to AgRural, a local farm consultancy.

Despite the precipitation, the harvest in the southernmost state of Rio Grande do Sul moved forward 16 percentage points to 72% complete last week with farms in the key producing district of Erechim yields 49 bushels per acre.

In the northeast, harvesting is further delayed with farmers continuing to register poor yields because of the dry weather during their summer.

In Maranhao, the harvest was 70% compete, compared to 80% last year. In Tocantins, fieldwork was 90% complete compared with 80% at the same point in 2015. In Bahia, some 85% had been harvested, up from 50% last year. The harvest is so advanced because in many cases the dry weather shortened the soybeans' cycle.

(AG)

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