Contrary to what the industry expected at the beginning of the 2018/2019 harvest, Brazil won't be the worldwide leader in soybean production. We won't even come close to the United States, which will keep the first place for now.
Last year's high temperatures and irregular rainfall made the experts reassess their yield estimates.
Agricultural marketing consultancy AgRural readjusted its predictions for the second time. The company, which was first expecting a harvest of 121 million tons, now says the Brazilian soybean production should be around 112.5 million tons.
Other agencies foresaw that the current harvest could reach 130 million tons, but that amount doesn't seem likely at this point, and there is potential for the final yield estimates to be even lower.
Brazil is repeating, albeit in a smaller scale, the phenomenon experienced by Argentinian soybean farmers during the last harvest, when the production, expected to be around 55 million tons, ended up being only 38 million.
Translated by NATASHA MADOV