Rio, June 26, 2003 (Agência Brasil - ABr) - The harvest of grains, legumes, and oil-seed crops should attain 118,544 million tons in 2003, according to the Systematic Survey of Agricultural Production, conducted in May by the IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics). This represents a growth of 22.04% compared with the harvest in 2002, which was 97.134 million tons.

The increase in the forecast for the harvest is the result of various factors, including technological progress in the agricultural sector and the regularity of the weather. The new estimate is 1.39% higher than April's forecast of 116.298 million tons.

Among the products analyzed in May's survey (cotton seeds, peanuts, rice, beans, castor beans, corn, soybeans, oats, rye, barley, sunflowers, sorghum, wheat, and triticale, a hybrid of wheat and rye), the outstanding performers in terms of harvest estimates are: ginned herbaceous cotton (+3.69%), first harvest beans (+0.30%), second harvest beans (+23.34%), first harvest corn kernels (+17.81%), second harvest corn kernels (58.07%), soybeans (+24.73%), and wheat kernels (+45.19%).

The harvests of unpolished rice grains and third harvest beans are expected to register declines of 1.58% and 4.95%, respectively. (DAS)