Early frosts could hurt Argentina’s already beleaguered soy and corn crops in the south of the country’s main farming region, the Buenos Aires grains exchange said February 16 in a report.
Argentina’s worst drought in six decades has already forced farmers to delay planting this season’s soy and corn crops, lowering expectations for the season’s yields.
Now the cash crops are set to face “cold and dry polar winds that will cause a remarkable drop in temperature, with unseasonably low temperatures, and with the risk of localized frost”, the grains exchanged said in its report.
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Rains will precede the low temperatures in the south and west of Argentina’s main agricultural region, but the central and eastern areas hardest hit by the drought won’t receive rain, the exchange said.
A week earlier, the exchange cut its estimate for the 2022/2023 coy crop to 38 million tonnes, down from the 48 million tonnes expected at the season’s start. The season’s corn haul was also downgraded to 44.5 million tonnes from an initial 50 million.
