Higher rates have further strengthened resistance to soybean sales

Pablo Adreani

In the last third of the harvest, and a volume already collected equivalent to 40 million tonnes, it is striking that the available soybean supply does not appear.

Between the purchase prices and the fixations already made, the producers have so far only sold eight million tonnes of soybeans. This figure equals 14% of the total production volume estimated at 56 million tonnes.

At the beginning of April, the row of eight kilometers of lines of trucks waiting to enter the ports of Gran Rosario was not neat. In a 90 percent were trucks with corn that had to meet the early sale transmit or future and with the exporters' shipping plan which was what attracted the surrender of allowances to ship the fumes.

Let's see the reality of today. At present, the number of trucks to be unloaded in the ports of Rosario reaches a total of 5,033 trucks. And the most interesting thing to note is that in the middle of the soybean harvest, maize is the product that most trucks are waiting to be unloaded at ports.

According to the private report last Thursday, 2,550 trucks carrying corn and 2,125 trucks carrying soybeans were to be unloaded. It is a true reflection of the producer's attitude today and demonstrates it with the limited amount of soy offered daily in the available market.

Landfill trucks are worth 63,000 tonnes worth $ 19 million; if we do the weekly calculation, we are talking about something over 300,000 tonnes and about $ 100 million. There is no doubt that today, the supply of soy available does not match the percentage harvested; the producer sells the minimum and the necessary to cover the harvest commitments and keeps the maximum historical volume.

Panorama

In a normal year, the producer should sell at least one million tonnes a week.

At this point, it was clear and demonstrated that the producer had decided to sell and earn money with wheat and corn. And this keeps soy as much as possible as a store of value.

The producer does not sell soy for the simple reason that if he markets it, he would absorb the loss per hectare at the time of sale. And in this reasoning, we must badyze very well the influence of extra-pampa soybeans on the behavior of producers in terms of sales.

All soy located at a distance greater than 500 kilometers from harbors and yields per hectare that do not reach 50 percent of the best areas of the wet pampa, if they are sold at the current price level, imply that the producer badumes the loss.

To all these economic, financial and productive uncertainties, we must add strawberry dessert: the increase in the statistical rate to 2.5% for imports. A combo that forms a new downward spiral that can generate greater retention from producers.

The measure implemented by the government, which only concerns soybeans imported from Brazil and Paraguay, benefits for state income at $ 28 million. The economic damage can be multiplied several times, due to the lower price of soybean meal than the processing plants and ultimately the producers will receive.

All of these factors external to the company only cause more uncertainty among the producers. In addition to causing the undesirable reaction of the government: a greater retention of the sale and, consequently, a lower entry of the currencies.