Brazil Soybean Yields Beat Forecast

Brazil, the world's second-largest soybean producer, will harvest more than expected this year as farmers limited crop diseases and used gene-modified seeds to grow stronger plants, a forecaster said after a field tour.
``I've never seen yields like that,'' Andre Pessoa, head of Agroconsult, said yesterday after a five-day tour in Brazil's Center-West region, which produces more than half the country's output. ``Just by looking at the crops you can tell productivity is a lot higher than we had expected.''
Brazil will produce more than 50 bags of soybeans per hectare on average, or 45 bushels an acre, up from Agroconsult's January estimate of about 47 bags, Pessoa said. One bag weighs 60 kilograms (132 pounds). Soybean prices jumped 84 percent in the past year to a record today.
The yield gain forecast by Agroconsult would mean a 10 percent increase in total output from last year's record to 64.5 million metric tons, based on the group's estimate of 21.5 million planted hectares. Florianopolis, Brazil-based Agroconsult in January forecast record output of 60.9 million tons this year.
Agroconsult last year correctly predicted soybean output within 100,000 tons as early as March, five month's before the Agriculture Ministry released its final estimate. The forecaster has consistently provided the most-accurate estimates months before the government over the past few years.
Growers in the states of Parana and Mato Grosso are producing at least 50 bags per hectare on average, with output at some farms rising to as much as 60 bags, said Eduardo Bao Zen Tang, head of grains trading at Terra Futuros, the country's biggest commodities brokerage.
``Farmers are paying a lot more attention to productivity,'' he said today in a phone interview from Sao Paulo. ``The progress is very clear.''
Brazilian growers were aided by above-average rainfall in recent months and have managed to stem the spread of a fungal disease known as Asian rust, Pessoa said in the interview in Rio Verde, in the Brazilian state of Goias.
Soybean farmer Roildes Ribeiro Benevides, 38, estimates his 5,000 hectares in Rio Verde will yield 55 bags per hectare this year, compared with 48 bags in the previous harvest, after he eradicated Asian rust from his fields.
``We've learned how to avoid the rust,'' Benevides said. ``This year we didn't give it a chance.''
The use of higher-yielding seeds is driving the increase, said grower Marcos Cassol, 39, whose 10,000 hectares of soybeans are yielding 50 bags per hectare, compared with 45 bags last year.
Planting of gene-modified soybeans in southwestern Goias state will likely reach 80 percent of the crop this year, said Paulo Rocha, a regional representative at Monsanto Co., which produces seeds that resist the company's Roundup weed killer.
Brazilian farmers reaped a record 58.5 million tons of soybeans last year, Agroconsult said in January.
Three teams of Agroconsult researchers are surveying more than 1,500 soybean and corn farms throughout the country between Feb. 17 and March 1. The group will release a new forecast based on the crop tours on March 10.
Soybean futures for May delivery rose 13.5 cents, or 1 percent, to $14.3825 on the Chicago Board of Trade, after earlier reaching a record $14.4025.
The U.S. is the world's biggest soybean producer.
For more information click here and read the article in Bloomberg website