Argentina

Argentina 1999/2000 Crop Faces Cold, Dry Spring
Reuters, May 5, 1999

Argentina's rollercoaster weather is forecast to turn dry and cold enough for damaging frosts during the 1999/2000 crop's Spring sowing, following a normal winter, a top climate official said Wednesday. "The hoped-for scenario is a normal June and July, but then August and September are seen colder than normal with less rain," Cesar Rebella, director of the Climate and Water division of the National Agriculture Technology Institute (INTA), said at a news conference. "That kind of climate could complicate cattle and crop evolution," Rebella added.

For the 1998/99 harvest the La Nina weather phenomenon resulted in drought in the south of Buenos Aires province which hit local sunflowers, wheat and corn. Throughout the Pampas grasslands rainfall in the second half of 1998 fell by 25-50 percent. The storm also brought mid-April frosts this year to the heart of the soybean district, hitting second-crop beans, and torrential rains in March and April that have delayed harvesting and negatively impacted six million hectares of farmland in Santa Fe and Cordoba. March 1999 rains were up to 800 percent higher than normal in some spots, Rebella noted. "It is anticipated La Nina will be neutralised in July," he said. Until then no quarter is expected from the rains. "There will be a problem with rains this month (of May) with average or above average doses in the Pampas and the possibility of storms dropping 100 millimetres or more," said Rebella.

La Nina hit its peak in December 1998 just as its wet predecessor El Nino climaxed in December 1997. Saddled with La Nina's wonky weather and about one million hectares of less sown land year-on-year, the 1998/99 harvest is expected to reach 57.87 million tonnes according to the Agriculture Department. Last season the crops lapped up El Nino's consistent season-long storms as they charged to a record-splintering 67.09 million tonne turn-out. Argentina's Pampas grasslands are one of the four richest agriculture regions in the world alongside the midwestern United States, China's Yellow River valley and the steppes of southern Russia and the Ukraine. Covering 60 million hectares, the fertile Argentine soils encompass all of Buenos Aires province, Entre Rios, eastern Cordoba, southern Santa Fe and eastern La Pampa.

Rains Cut Into Argentine Wheat Crop Coverage Area
Reuters, July 28, 2000

A spate of rain throughout Argentina's wheat belt has delayed planting of the 2000/2001 crop and threatens to knock up to 300,000 hectares off intended sowing areas, analysts said Friday. Private sources originally expected the wheat seed to be spread over 6.4 million hectares, some 140,000 hectares more than the Agriculture Department's estimate. But wet weather has pushed current projections down to 6.1 million hectares. "In (northeastern) Entre Rios province, the majority of the crop was lost," said an analyst. "A lot of hectares have gone to the wayside because of the rains," he continued.