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The Paraguayan government announced this week that it will help its soybean producers, who are facing one of the worst droughts in recent times. Measures to support the agricultural sector include reducing taxes and opening credit lines to refinance debts through the state bank Banco Nacional de Fomento and other state agencies.
According to the Paraguayan president, Mario Abdo, the objective is to provide “relief and predictability” to soybean growers from the fourth largest oilseed exporter in the world, who before the drought expected to harvest a harvest of around 10 million tons of soybeans in 2021/ 22. The program will help around 21 thousand small producers in the first quarter.
The Paraguayan Minister of Agriculture and Livestock, Moisés Bertoni, indicated that “together with the various unions, UGP, Fecoprod, Association of Soy Producers, we are monitoring what happens in the field with soy, which is our main export item. We are very concerned about the effects that this [the drought] is having on the first soybean planting.”
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“By coincidence, in the area that was most planted, which is the south of the country, where it rained early, and where the drought has the greatest effect, they would both be in the region of Itapúa, Colônias Unidas, which represent approximately a third of all production of soy. All of this will undoubtedly represent a drop in the total volume (production) of soybeans and we hope it will be smaller, but we have to prepare for this scenario”, he commented to the newspaper La Nación.
With the drought, Paraguayan soybean production could drop by approximately 30%, falling to just 7 million tons with the drought. However, Bertoni stated that it is still too premature to speculate on a number: “I think that next week we will have a good idea of how much the drop will be. On the other hand, we must emphasize that the prices we are talking about will encourage the producer to re-sow and thus mitigate the drop in production”.
By: Leonardo Gottems | agrolink
