Second crop corn harvest reaches 76% of planted area

The harvest of the second crop corn in central-south Brazil reached 76% of the planted area, compared to 49% a year ago, according to AgRural.

In the region, farmers plant two crops in one season – most commonly a summer soybean crop, followed by a second winter crop corn, commonly known as a “safrinha”.

This year, however, Brazil’s second maize crop, which is largely destined for exports, was planted ahead of schedule due to an early summer soybean crop.

AgRural reported that Brazil should reach a record harvest of 76.3m tons of corn in this second crop. In the same period last year, Brazil’s second corn crop was 53.9m tons.

Corn production in Brazil is expected to reach 98.5m tons in 2018-2019, according to the National Supply Company (Conab), an increase of 1.5m tons from the June forecast. Brazil’s corn production in 2017-2018 was 80.71m tons.

Over the past two months, Brazil has been exporting large quantities of corn, which is unusual for the period from May to June, due to the early harvest of corn.

2.4m tons of corn were exported in the May-June quarter of this year, which is significantly higher than the average export of 343,415 tons during the same period of the last six years, according to official data.

In addition, in the first three weeks of July, Brazilian corn exports increased to 3.75m tons, compared with 1.17m tons in July last year.

Source: SP Global

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