Rio, March 25, 2004 (Agência Brasil) - Agricultural losses caused by drought in Rio Grande do Sul and excessive rains in Mato Grosso induced the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) to revise its February estimate for the Brazilian grain harvest this year. The forecast announced today is for 130.451 million tons, 1.89% less than the 132.969 million tons estimated in January. Even so, the February estimate is still 5.9% higher than the 123.181 million tons gathered in the 2003 harvest.

Soybeans, which alone account for over a third of the country's grain production, were, according to the IBGE, the crop most affected by the adverse climate, especially in the states of Mato Gross, Paraná, Santa Catarina, and Mato Grosso do Sul, the principal poles of production. The February estimate for soybeans is 3.43% lower than in January. This, in the view of the coordinator of the IBGE's Systematic Survey of Agricultural Production (LSPA), Carlos Alberto Lauria, is already influencing the price of soybeans.

"The prices are already higher as a consequence of the smaller harvest, and, since soybeans are an export product, we shall probably face an imbalance," he affirmed.

Translator: David Silberstein