BRASILIA: Brazil’s soybean exports will likely rise to more than 7 million tonnes in March with little risk of further disruption from truck strikes, analyst Pedro Dejnaka, managing partner of AGR Brasil, told.
Truck traffic has been normal and soy stocks have been replenished at Brazilian ports since truck drivers lifted the final roadblocks of a two-week strike last week, Dejnaka said.
In addition to depleting stocks at Paranagua port, the strike left supermarkets with empty shelves, slowed soy harvesting in some states, and cost Brazil’s poultry and pork industries $241 million.
Autonomous truckers are negotiating new freight rates and will next sit down with government officials on March 26.
The roadblocks stopped after President Dilma Rousseff signed into law a new truckers’ bill to lower toll costs, waive fines for overweight trucks charged in the past two years and build more rest stops on federal highways.
The law did not address the protesters’ main demands for higher freight rates and lower diesel fuel costs, however.
Even so, Dejnaka said AGR Brasil, a subsidiary of Chicago-based AgResources, does not believe there will be a resumption of roadblocks. “We fully expect the flow of beans to continue at a healthy pace during March,” he said.
Brazil exported only 870,000 tonnes of soybeans in February, 69 percent less than in the previous year according to government trade data. Dejneka said that was because of delayed soy planting last year as well as the strike.
Brazil is expected to export upward of 7 million tonnes in March, he said. The lineup of ships for March “shows the potential for a new monthly record, close to 8.3 million tonnes,” he added.
The quality of Brazil’s upcoming crop is “tremendous,” Dejneka said. AgResources estimates national output of 95.1 million tonnes this season, above most private and government forecasts.
