Drought conditions across northern Brazil are holding back grain exports this year, according to a report by Splash247.
Water levels along key Brazilian rivers are at their lowest levels since records began in 1950, according to the 11 October report.
Drought had halted grain and soyabean shipments through the Madeira River – an important export route – in September, the report said.
The Madeira River is a key corridor for shipping products from Rondônia state and parts of Mato Grosso state, Brazil's top soyabean producer, to export terminals located in the country's northern states, according to a 25 September Reuters report.
In 2023, some 34% of Brazilian soyabean exports and almost 43% of corn exports were shipped through the North Arc region, which includes ports located in northern Brazil, the report said.
On 10 October, local port operator Amport said that grain transport through the Tapajós waterway – another vital route for moving grains to export terminals – had come to a halt due to the dry conditions, Splash247 wrote.
In Tabatinga, on Brazil’s border with Colombia, the Solimões river had also fallen to its lowest recorded level.
Brazil’s natural disaster monitoring agency Cemaden has described the current drought as the “most intense and widespread” it has ever recorded.
In the week of the report, a suction hopper dredger, the Lindway, had arrived in Manaus in central Brazil from the USA to work on a project to deepen some of the Amazon’s network of waterways.
Droughts further south in the continent had also been impacting grain export flows from Paraguay and Argentina with the Paraná River reaching near-record low water levels, Splash247 wrote.
At this time last year, severe drought conditions in the Amazon region had forced Brazilian grain exporters to divert some export shipments from northern to southern port terminals, Reuters reported grain exporters’ group Anec as saying.
