End of drought and start of a new cycle of agricultural production. The change of the rural page coincides with the change of politics and a presidential election that should define between two different economic models. But whoever is chosen, they will receive a valued gift from the production cycle. The projections of the Rosario Stock Exchange – the most respected on the matter – expect a 70 percent increase in grain production for the new campaign (2023/24) in relation to the one that ended. And that the exportable balance will double (103.5 percent increase). Undoubtedly, an important comfort in one of the most sensitive aspects of the economic situation, the lack of dollars, which marks a broad sense of the climate that precedes the political sense that the country is first this.
The table accompanying this note shows the jump in production of the country’s main agro-industrial complexes between the completed campaign and the next one, which has already begun. The increase in soybeans, according to the projections of the Rosario Stock Exchange, could reach almost 140 percent. In corn it reaches almost 65 percent and in wheat, more than 35 percent. Outside the table, the data for sunflower is added, with an increase of 5 percent, and barley, with 20 percent.
In terms of exports, the rise is even more remarkable. The increase in quantity exceeds 260 percent in the case of soybeans and reaches 100 percent in corn and more than 170 percent in wheat.
Considering in general the projection of exports of the largest complexes of cereal grains and oilseeds (including oils and by-products), it is estimated that of the 57 million final tons estimated for the 2022/23 season, the projected 99 million may have reached the 2023/24 season.
In numbers: a projection of net exports of 34.3 billion dollars, against 24.8 billion in the campaign that just ended. That is, 38 percent more or almost 10 billion dollars more than the rest of the export of grains and derivatives this year.
A report from the Rosario Stock Exchange (Tomás Rodríguez Zurro – Franco Ramseyer – Patricia Bergero) this week summarizes the organization’s projections, saying that “after the disastrous 2022/23 campaign, where grain production in Argentina suffered a severe cut as a result of the drought, the harvest is expected to increase by 70% annually, reaching a volume of 136.3 million tons.
Of the almost 120 million tons of production that contribute to soybeans, corn and wheat (as illustrated in the table accompanying this note), more than 5 million tons of barley, more than 4 million sunflowers and almost 7.5 million of tons will be added. millions of sorghum and other grains.
In other words, from the 80.3 million tons of grains produced in 2022/23, it will increase to 136.3 million, that is, about 56 million additional tons. What fate will it give? The same report shows that 78.5 million are destined for domestic consumption and the remaining 59.8 million tons for export.
Part of this domestic consumption is the proportion reinvested as seed or for farm consumption, representing just over 20 million tons. The rest, about 57 million tons, is grain destined for industrial use.
Changing the industry
The development of grains destined for industrial use can be seen mainly in the soybean complex, while it is “small in sunflower crushing” (grinding the seed to extract the oil), the aforementioned report says. “In the current cycle, soybean processing has been severely affected by the drought and even the record temporary import of seeds will not save the oil industry from falling into a twenty-year low of processing,” indicates in the work of Bergero, Rodríguez Zurro and Ramseyer. .
The amount of grain destined for the industry will grow by 27 percent in the 2023/24 season compared to the previous one, but due to its concentration in the soybean complex it will be seen in an increase in the industrialization of this branch of more than 40 percent there were 38.7 million tons processed, according to estimates. In the sunflower sector, an increase of 6 percent is expected, while in wheat and barley the volumes to be industrialized are the same as in the current campaign (6 million tons of wheat destined for milling and the feed industry, and 1.2 million barley to be used in malt production.
“In any case, among the use of grains in the new campaign, export is the thing that grows the most compared to one of them,” the report emphasized. “It is expected that grain shipments abroad will double in the next cycle thanks to the recovery of production, with an estimated total of 63.6 million tons,” he added.
“If we also take into account the planned export of oils and products for the next campaign, the total export of the main cereals and oilseed complex will reach almost 100 million tons, registering an increase of more than 75% between the campaigns and barely. remains behind the highest more than 104.1 million in the 2018/19 campaign,” he concluded.
The impact of higher exportable balances is less understandable measured in foreign currencies, because “the average prices planned for the next cycle appear to be lower than the current campaign,” the report said. saying. The balance of exports of grains and derivatives amounts to 34.3 billion dollars, 9.5 billion more than the campaign ended, “marking the third best performance, behind the 2020/21 and 2021/22 ones cycle.” In the total amount exported, the soybean complex contributes about 20 billion and the corn complex, about 8,000 million. That is, between them about 82 percent of the total.
