Agriculture & Food

The successive droughts and frosts dealt a devastating blow to most of Brazil's crops this year.

Reuters quoted the latest report from AgRural, an agricultural consulting company, that bad weather caused the second corn output in central and southern Brazil to fall to its lowest level in ten years. It is expected that Brazil will harvest 51.6 million tons of corn this year, up from 7,050 in the previous season. Ten thousand tons decreased by nearly 19 million tons.

The second crop of corn is a crop planted after soybean harvest. It is Brazil's main corn crop, and Brazil is also one of the world's largest soybean suppliers.

AgRural said that due to the late soybean harvest, this year's corn planting time has been greatly delayed. The poor corn harvest in 2021 was mainly due to the lack of rain in most producing areas in April and May. In addition, the frost that began at the end of June and has continued to the present has also reduced yield and quality.

In addition, S&P Gobal also stated at the end of July that according to the latest reports from the agricultural departments of different corn-growing states, Brazil's 2020-21 corn production may be less than 90 million tons, which is significantly lower than the 2019-20 level of 102.5 million tons.

The article also mentioned that the planting of corn crops was postponed this year, and large-scale corn planting was outside the ideal planting window, putting the crop at risk of frost damage. In addition, although people have been worried about the impact of frost since this season, drought has severely affected corn production during the critical crop growth period.

Not only Brazil, but the United States has also been plagued by drought before. Concerns about the two major corn producing countries in Brazil and the United States may keep corn prices high.