04/17/24 Brazil Has Potential to Add 70 Million Acres of Crop Land

Brazil’s soybean harvest pace is beginning to slow as it nears its conclusion.  We expect Brazil’s harvest to reach 90% this week but it may take another month yet to wrap things up completely.  CONAB made a minor adjustment lower to their April soybean production despite finding an additional 140,000 acres by cutting yield a quarter bushel per acre to 48 bpa overall.  This places overall estimates at 146.5 MMT for CONAB while the USDA didn’t budge from their March report.  Traders are putting more emphasis on the USDA, pointing out their superior satellite and NDVI technology.   I pointed that out to one trader in Brazil that the USDA has been more accurate in recent years to which he replied, “this time they are wrong.”   Even if CONAB and the USDA split the difference, that is still 150+ million bushels removed from Brazil’s export supply.   Brazil’s exports are the canary in the coal mine.  They are the first to go when there is a lack of supply.  One red flag is that Brazil’s soybean exports were down for the month of March compared to last year by 6%.  This would be unusual for the middle of their peak export…