Agroconsult sees more soybeans than expected in Brazil and puts Conab in check

With satellite images, and after field analyzes collected by the Rally da Safra expedition, Agroconsult began to estimate a soybean planted area in the country in this 2023/24 harvest of 46.4 million hectares, 753 thousand more than it calculated previously and with an increase of 1.2 million hectares in relation to the National Supply Company (Conab) number. As a result, the consultancy adjusted its forecast for the oilseed harvest to 156.5 million tons, 4.3 million above its last forecast and a volume 6.5% higher than what appears in the most recent report from the state-owned company linked to the Ministry of Agriculture – 146.9 million tons, compared to 154.6 million in 2022/23, a new record.

“Over the last 20 years of the Harvest Rally, we have been very focused on going into the field with methodological rigor to bring the best information about the productivity of each of Brazil’s regions. Productivity, however, is only one of the factors of production. Three years ago we set the objective of adding validation of the planted area through satellite images to the Rally methodology. We then invested in implementing Cropdata, a crop analysis tool that uses algorithms to analyze, process and classify satellite images”, explains André Debastiani, partner at Agroconsult and coordinator of the Safra Rally.

In relation to Conab’s estimate – which also uses satellite images and carries out field analysis – for Brazilian soybean production in 2023/24, the consultancy’s new number represents a new historical record. It turns out that Agronconsult’s account for last season (162.4 million tons) is also different from that of the federal state-owned company. In other words, in the consultancy’s view there will indeed be a reduction in the harvest in 2023/24, due to the climate problems caused by El Niño, but the hole is higher up. Since January, the Harvest Rally has been in 15 states across the country during the crop development and soybean harvesting phases. Brazil leads global grain production and exports.