Brazil to surpass US as world’s top soy producer

Brazil is set to overtake the US as the largest soybean producer worldwide for 2018, the Brazilian Association of Vegetable Oil Industries (Abiove) has revealed.

According to the latest US Department of Agriculture (USDA) figures, Brazil is expected to collect 117 million tonnes of soybeans this year, while the US is due to harvest 116.48 million tonnes. Abiove’s own estimation places Brazil’s soybean production even higher for 2017/18, at 118.4 million tonnes.

The South American nation is also projected to build on this lead in the next few years, in part due to its ability to expand its cropland area. Abiove president André Nassar said: “The Americans already are using the maximum possible [area].”

Other reasons for the increase in farmers’ yields include improved logistics in the supply chain, and the planting of second-crop corn as a rotation crop, as well as expansion of the country’s overall planting area. Second-crop is the planting of new crop in the same area after the first crop has been harvested earlier in the season.

Soybean planting areas are currently growing at a rate of 500,000ha to 700,000ha per year. Abiove estimated that an additional 500,000ha would increase production by two million tonnes per growing season.

“This is something the Americans are unable to do. The area there expands and contracts because of the competition between soy and corn [planted areas],” said Nassar.

The 2017/2018 soybean harvesting season, which began last September, is nearly over for Brazilian soy farmers, whereas US producers are just beginning to plant their crops.

Forecasts by the USDA for US farmers suggest that there will be a reduction of 1.45% this year to 88.2 million acres. Brazil’s current farming area for soybean is 35.09 million hectares, according to government data.

Nassar added that Brazil has even more capacity to transform pasture land into grain fields, which already exist and would not contribute to deforestation.

Consultancy group Céleres said that Brazil could export a record 72 million tonnes this year, with demand for soybean remaining strong internationally.