Argentina-The grain harvest.

ARGENTINA-THE GRAIN HARVEST.

The soybean, corn and sunflower harvest had strong advances last week, preliminary figures released by the Buenos Aires Grains Exchange showed yesterday.

The available farmland sown with soybean, three quarters of which had been harvested by last Friday, was 7.1 percentage points larger compared to the same period last year.

Lower-than-expected yields however have tentatively put expected production from soybean at 39,400,000 tons, the Exchange said.

In the case of corn and with practically 50 percent of available area already harvested, figures point at an advance of 19.5 percent on last year although production appeared to remain stable at 13,500,000 tons.

Corn meanwhile showed an advance of 2.5 percentage points on the same harvest period last year, with 97 percent of arable area harvested, with production reaching 3,000,000 tons so far.

The balance volume yet to be accounted for would be slightly above 3,000,000 tons, the Exchange added.

In other agricultural news, currency settlements on grain as well as seed oil exports and their byproducts last week were once again lower than the previous week, at 257.4 million US dollars.

Data released by both the Argentine Chamber of Seed Oil Producers (CIARA) and the Grain Exporters’ Centre (CEC) show the total amount settled in the week from March 30 to April 3 at 257.432,731 million dollars. Grain and oil seed exports by the two organizations combined represent a third of the country’s total.