2023-10-03 02:35:41
© Reuters. Corn harvest 11/18/2021 REUTERS/Stephane Mahe
(Text corrected to add “thousand” in cotton lint and cottonseed productivity projections, in the last paragraph)
SÃO PAULO (Reuters) – Agricultural producer SLC released projections for the 2023/24 harvest on Monday that include expectations of stability in the total planted area, but a drop in the average cost per hectare due to lower fertilizer and pesticide prices, as per fact relevant to the market.
SLC estimated a projection that its planted area for the 2023/24 harvest will be 674 thousand hectares, practically stable compared to the previous harvest.
By crop, the planted area of – which includes commercial and seed — is expected to fall 2.9% compared to the last harvest, to 336.8 thousand hectares, while the estimate for cotton area is for growth of 15. 5%, to 187.5 thousand hectares. For the second harvest, SLC estimated a decline of 24.8% in the planted area, to 103.4 thousand hectares.
The company stated that it “significantly” increased the cotton area, as the crop has good margins, and that part of this increase came from the migration of corn area.
“The reduction in corn area also led to an increase in other crops such as brachiaria seed, mung beans and sesame, among others,” said SLC.
The company announced that the total average cost projection for the 2023/24 harvest is 7.2 thousand reais per hectare, a drop of 10.1% compared to the budget for the previous harvest.
“This drop mainly reflects the decline in the prices of fertilizers and pesticides, which have a strong correlation with commodity prices,” said SLC. All the main crops showed a projected decline in costs compared to the last harvest.
PRODUCTIVITY
SLC also released productivity projections for the 2023/24 harvest, with an expected increase of 0.9% in the soybean harvest compared to what was budgeted for the previous harvest, to almost 4 thousand kg per hectare. For second harvest corn, the company expects a drop of 1.3%, to 7.6 thousand kg per hectare.
In the case of cotton lint, the first harvest should see an increase of 3.6% in productivity, to almost 2 thousand kg per hectare, and the second harvest, an increase of 1.3%, to 1.9 thousand kg per hectare. Cotton seed productivity is expected to rise 0.2%, to 2,400 kg per hectare.
(Reporting by André Romani; editing by Patrícia Vilas Boas)
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