Uruguay-Record wheat crop.

URUGUAY.

RECORD WHEAT HARVEST.

Uruguay expects this year, its largest wheat harvest on record of 1.3 million tons.

The report detailing the projections, was released by the Agricultural Ministry on Thursday evening in Montevideo.

This is not all together good news for farmers, with record harvests from Australia to England and the Baltic States to South America.

When the wheat was sown it was selling at US$400 a ton, today its selling at US$160 a ton.

There are other inconveniences such as storage for the bumper crop, coupled with a scarcity of harvesting equipment.

This year wheat exports from Uruguay were 414,000 tons, sold at an average FOB price of US$316 per ton.

It is anticipated there will be 900,000 tons available for export in 2009, no one dares predict the price. Unlike to Northern Hemisphere there are no subsidies in Latin America, in fact the farmers have to pay an export tax in Argentina.

Argentina has dropped its forecast for the wheat crop, by more than one million tons according to figures from the Agricultural Secretariat ONCCA.

This will leave around 5.8 million tons for export.