Argentine forward soybean sales surge as new ‘soy dollar’ starts

Argentine soybean forward sales jumped higher in the week to November 30, with the beginning of the new soy dollar scheme making sales more attractive, data from the country's Agriculture Secretariat showed.

Forward corn sales trended higher on the week while forward wheat sales were broadly unchanged.

Farmers applied for fresh export licenses for 115,000 mt of corn.

Soybeans

New crop soybean sales lifted 317% on the week to 256,100 mt while old crop forward sales surged from 188,100 mt in the previous week to 556,600 mt in the week to November 30.

Surging soybean sales came as the new soy dollar scheme came in force on November 28, with farmers taking advantage of the preferential exchange rate of 230 pesos to the US dollar.

Fresh forward sales lifted total commitments to date to 2.3 million mt for new crop beans and 32.6 million mt for old crop, both considerably lower than the 3.4 million mt and 35.3 million mt reported at the same point in the previous year.

Despite the beginning of the scheme, there were virtually no fresh export license applications for soybeans as most beans sold since November 28 were purchased by domestic crush industries, according to anecdotal evidence.

Corn

Farmer sales for the 2021/22 corn crop lifted mildly to 676,800 mt in the week to November 30 while new crop sales jumped 90% on the week to 153,000 mt.

Old crop total commitments to date were reported at 6.5 million mt compared to 11.2 million mt year-ago while new crop accumulated commitments at 43 million mt also fell short of figures from the previous year at 45.6 million mt.

There were fresh export license applications for 115,000 mt of old crop corn.

Wheat

Weekly forward wheat sales were broadly unchanged on the week reported at 45,900 mt for old crop and 137,400 mt for new crop.

Accumulated old wheat crop sales were up to 22.9 million mt, above the level reached at the same point in the previous year while new crop total sales came in at 6 million mt, below the 11.4 million mt reported year-ago as a result of the large crop loss farmers faced in 2022.

There were no fresh export license applications for wheat.