Aug 27, 2020
Conab Increased Brazil Soy Production 14.4 mt for Last Seven Years
Author: Michael Cordonnier/Soybean & Corn Advisor, Inc.
In addition to releasing their estimates of Brazil's anticipated 2020/21 grain production last Tuesday, Conab also announced that they have revised upward Brazilian soybean production for the last seven years by 14.4 million tons. These announcements were part of the 2020/21 Agriculture and Livestock Perspective released by the Brazilian Minister of Agriculture.
Conab indicated that they revised their soybean production estimates for the last seven growing season due to discrepancies between the production estimates and export and consumption data. The Brazilian soybean production for the last seven years was increased 14.4 million tons with 12.4 million tons of the increase coming from the last three growing seasons.
For the 2019/20 soybean crop that was just harvested, they increased the production by 3.57 million tons to 124.5 million. Just two weeks ago in their August Crop Report, Conab estimated the 2019/20 Brazilian soybean crop at 120.9 million tons.
The Director of Conab, Guilherme Bastos, said the revision was needed because of the discrepencies in the supply/demand balance sheet for Brazilian soybeans because the consumption and export data did not match production estimates. Bastos indicated that while the review was underway for the last three months, Conab suspended the release of some of the data. This probably explains why the 2019/20 Brazilian soybean production estimate was increased 3.57 million tons from one week to the next.
While Conab has released the revised production estimates, they have not released revised supply/demand balance sheets.
Conab forecasted that Brazil will export 86.7 million tons of soybeans in 2021 comparted to the 82 million tons forecasted for 2020. The previous record for Brazilian soybean exports was 83 million tons set in 2018.
Conab is not done with their review of recent production estimates because they also announced that they are going to review the production estimates for corn, rice, wheat, cotton, and dry beans. They did not indicate when the review of these production estimates would be released.