Argentina Dry Bean Planting Update

In the last newsletter we provided a brief report on Argentine market dynamics as they impact the U.S.’ competitiveness in the Americas. As of this writing Argentina has exported 288,744 MT of dry beans. This is an increase of 11% compared to previous year data for that period. Brazil is again Argentina’s top export market at 103,262 MT. Last month, USDBC’s Regional Representative conducted a prospective planting  trip to Argentina’s main bean growing regions, reporting that an estimated 30,000 MT of black bean stocks remained (not including bean held for 2018 seeding) and any remaining alubia and colored bean inventories had already been sold  and were awaiting shipment.

Alubia beans in Salta

Planting of the 2018 crop is complete and based on prospective plantings, we are estimating that black beans are up 6% over last year, alubia (white bean) plantings will be similar to last year (but about 30% was planted late, raising concerns about the potential for frost at harvest), cranberry bean plantings are up (and might have been higher if there had been more seed) and dark red kidney bean plantings are up. Harvest starts late May and typically goes through June. USDBC will return to the field in June to survey production. For a detailed report, please see USDBC’s Argentina Prospective Plantings Report for March 2018.

Precipitation map from Argentina’s Meteorological Service