Argentina: Barley crop estimated at up to 3.7 mln tonnes this year

According to Buenos Aires Grain Exchange, Argentina’s 2020 barley acreage is estimated at 900 thousand ha, production at 3.7 mln tonnes, H. M. Gauger GmbH reported earlier in October.

Grain Exchange’s crop estimate is higher than most trade estimates of approximately 3.3 – 3.5 mln tonnes. Drought in the north and frost in the south may have a negative effect on the crop.

Export licence fixations for new crop barley are only 266 thousand tonnes of malting and 310 thousand of feed barley. Reported sales to China are 150 thousand tonnes of old and 380 thousand tonnes of new crop barley. Optimists hope that Argentina will ship 800 thousand tonnes of new crop barley to China, but 2.3 – 2.5 mln tonnes are needed for the domestic demand and neighbour South American malt industries. It just leaves a feed and malting barley surplus of approximately 1 mln tonnes for shipments overseas.