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Heavy rains slow harvest in Brazil, bumper crop still expected
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Forecast rains not enough to allay Argentina crop stress fears
SINGAPORE, Feb 7 (Reuters) - Chicago soybean futures inched higher on Tuesday, as harvest progress slowed in top exporter Brazil due to continued heavy rains in key producing regions.
Wheat reversed earlier gains, while corn edged lower.
The most-active soybean contract on the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) was up 0.1% at $15.23-1/4 a bushel, as of 0458 GMT.
Wheat lost 0.3% to $7.48-1/4 a bushel and corn gave up 0.2% to $6.77-1/2 a bushel.
Top soybean producer Argentina is unlikely to see any rains over the next five days, but chances will improve into the weekend and scattered rains are still forecast for next week, according to a note from commodities research firm Hightower.
However, it is difficult to be confident that enough rains will fall to ease crop concerns as forecast models have been flip-flopping recently. Elsewhere, some areas of Brazil remain too wet, slowing down harvest progress, but traders are still expecting a bumper crop, Hightower said.
Brazilian farmers have harvested more than 14 million tonnes of soybeans so far in the 2022/2023 season, Adriano Gomes, an analyst at agribusiness consultancy AgRural, told Reuters by telephone on Monday.
The volume, which would be greater had it not been for rains disrupting the work of harvesters, represents Brazil's oilseed production after machines cleared 9% of the country's planted area, according to AgRural data released earlier in the day.
Last season, farmers would have reaped 16% of their soy fields in Brazil by now, AgRural said.
Ukraine has exported almost 27.7 million tonnes of grain so far in the 2022/23 season, down from the 39.2 million tonnes exported by the same stage of the previous season, agriculture ministry data showed on Monday.
Russian wheat prices fell last week as a record harvest and record wheat stocks helped keep supplies high, analysts said on Monday.
Algeria's state grains agency OAIC issued two international tenders to buy soft milling wheat to be sourced from optional origins, European traders said on Monday.
U.S. farmers are planning to boost corn acreage in 2023, eyeing lower prices of fertiliser needed to grow the crop and hoping for a bumper crop after a late season drought withered last year's grain harvest and left U.S. corn supplies near a decade low.
Commodity funds were net sellers of Chicago Board of Trade soybean, soymeal and wheat futures contracts on Monday, traders said. The funds were net buyers of corn and soyoil futures, they said. (Reporting by Matthew Chye; Editing by Subhranshu Sahu)
