December rainfall helps to improve harvest forecast for 2018
January 11, 2018 09h00 AM | Last Updated: January 11, 2018 11h48 AM
The forecast of the grain harvest for 2018 increased from 219.5 million tonnes to 224.3 million tonnes, a rise of 2.2%, revealed the Systematic Survey of Agricultural Production - LSPA, released today by the IBGE.
"In November, extensive droughts caused a delay in the beginning of the crop", explains Carlos Alfredo Guedes, researcher at the IBGE, "but plenty of rainfall in December changed this picture, causing adjustments in the forecast of harvested area and volume of production of rice, soybeans and first crop of corn". Together, the three products account for nearly 95% of the national production estimate of grains.
The IBGE forecasts that the soybeans harvest in 2018 will be 112.3 million tonnes, that of rice will be 11.7 million tonnes and the two harvests of corn should stay at 26.6 million tonnes and 57.9 million tonnes, respectively.
For now, however, the forecast is of a smaller annual harvest than that of 2017, which was estimated at 240.6 million tonnes. "It is important to notice that the comparison basis is quite high, because we had a record harvest in 2017. As a result, the total change in volume should be negative, though much better than that forecasted in November", concluded Carlos Alfredo.
Text: Eduardo Peret
Design: Marcelo Barroso
Image: Pxhere
