SOURCE: BUENOS AIRES TIMES

DATE: NOV 16, 2023

Argentina running out of soy adds to next president’s economic woes

The road that leads to some of Argentina’s largest ports and soybean processing plants is
usually filled with 2,000 trucks every day at this time of year. ……. (prep)Tuesday afternoon
late last month, there …….. (be) only a handful.

After the worst drought in six decades left the world’s largest exporter of soy products with
the smallest crop in nearly 25 years, farmers are running ……… (prep) of the commodity that
fuels Argentina’s economy.

Soybean factories owned by US trading giants Cargill Inc and Bunge Global SA, as well as
China’s Cofco International and local processor Vicentin are all operating at reduced capacity
or have shut altogether. With almost nothing /anything to export.

“The drought situation in Argentina is catastrophic for us,” Gustavo Idigoras, head of CIARA-
CEC, a lobby group representing some of the country’s top soy crashers/ crushers and crop
shippers, said in an interview in Buenos Aires.

The Board of Trade in the port city of Rosario, which houses most of Argentina’s soybean
processing plants, estimates the economic hit from lower crop exports at US$16 billion — all at
a time when a new president will need as many dollars as possible.

Truck deliveries

Take the first Friday of November, when just 382 soy cargoes rolled into the Rosario area, 59
percent fewer than the same day a year earlier, according to trucking agency AgroEntregas.
That was one of the worst / worse days for deliveries recently. The drought also curbed
arrivals of other / another / others crops.

As a result, several soy plants are already bringing forward annual maintenance, putting
production lines out of action earlier than normal. Idle capacity at plants could reach as much
as 70 percent, according to the Rosario Board of Trade.

Neighbouring Brazil has overtaken Argentina as the world’s top exporter of soybean meal — a
key ingredient in animal feed / food— for the first time since 1998.

The economic impact — worsened by an unexpectedly small wheat harvest that’s currently
being sown/ gathered — is huge. Exports of all crops including soybeans, wheat and sunflower
seeds are forecast at just US$25.5 billion, 39 percent less than in the 2021-2022 season, the
Rosario exchange estimates.

For now, it’s going to be a long wait for fresh soybeans — which …………………. (plant) yet. And
the pain is only going to get deeper as more factories run out of supplies.