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Argentina could no longer be the world's largest exporter of soybean meal due to the impact of a historic drought that would reduce production of the oilseed by 36% in the annual comparison, to just 27 million tons in the 2022/23 cycle, said the Commerce Exchange de Rosário (BCR) this Tuesday.
In this way, Brazil would occupy the first position as an international supplier of the derivative, said BCR, adding that the last time Argentina found itself below its neighbor as an exporter of the product was 25 years ago.
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“Argentina would be exporting close to 20 million tons in the 2022/23 campaign, 29% of global trade, below Brazil,” BCR said in a statement, which detailed that Brazilian soybean meal exports would be between 21 million and 23 millions of tons .
According to the Brazilian Association of Vegetable Oil Industries (Abiove), the country's soybean meal shipments are expected to grow by 3.7% in 2023, to 20.7 million tons.
Argentina has dominated the international soybean meal market in recent decades thanks to the powerful grinding complex installed in the country, close to its main agricultural region and on the banks of the Paraná River, the departure route for shipments.
However, a drought that began in May last year and lasted until the beginning of March caused heavy losses in production, which impacted agro-industrial activity.
Last month, the CIARA-CEC processors chamber told Reuters that Argentina's soybean processing plants are operating with the largest idle capacity in their history due to the impact of the drought and that imports of the bean for processing would increase to around 8 million tons.
According to government data, agro-export companies in the last harvest declared shipments of soybean meal in a total of 23.5 million tons, below the 27 million tons in the 2020/21 campaign.
Source: Maximilian Heath | Notícias Agrícolas
