Pixabay
Pixabay

Brazil’s crops in the 2022/23 season are at risk due to tight supplies of fertiliser, according to an AgriCensus report on 11 November.

Farmers were worried that ordered products would not be delivered, the report said, which could hit production.

“At current market conditions, buying inputs is one thing... getting them delivered in time is something else,” Agrinvest’s fertilisers analyst Jeferson Souza told AgriCensus.

While the majority of fertilisers for the main soyabean and the second corn crop safrinha planting in the current marketing year had been bought, it was not certain that contracts would be fulfilled, AgriCensus wrote.

The uncertainty is related to supply disruptions in the global market stemming from this year’s worldwide economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the report, with bottlenecks hitting leading producers and exporters in the trade, including Belarus, China and Russia.

Looking beyond the current marketing year, Brazilian farmers could face further problems due to high production costs, the report said.

“Fertilisers might be an issue for 2022/23 soyabeans… farmers have been complaining about challenges to secure supplies as even sellers are not fully confident about how to capture prices for fertilisers for deliveries so far ahead,” Agrural’s Daniele Siqueira told AgriCensus.

Comparing the situation to 2005/06 when Brazilian farmers’ margins were hit, Agrinvest’s Souza said the country’s planted area could be squeezed in 2022/23 with a halt or even a decrease in growth.