Soybean dollar: producers sold 8.2 million tons in the third edition of the program

After certain obstacles at the beginning, the improvement in the price after the fourth week of validity of the PIE boosted sales and the average daily volume came to be between 250,000 and 300,000 tons, with peaks of 500,000 tons.

The “agricultural dollar” has come to an end for the soybean complex, at least in regards to soybean marketing under the special exchange scheme of $300 per dollar, since agro-exporting companies will have until Friday to settle foreign currency. Thus, producer sales were close to 8.2 million tons of soybeans during the third edition of the Export Increase Program (PIE III).

In this way, the preliminary volume from April 12 to date was 8,201,813 tons, taking into account that until yesterday 8,173,860 tons were marketed and that according to the official platform SIO Granos, where businesses in the sector are registered , marked 27,953 tons during this day until 6:00 p.m. This figure was 1.8 million tons below the 10 million forecast at the beginning of the plan, although it was 40% higher than the previous edition of the PIE, when they sold a total of 5.8 million tons.

In the first weeks of the measure, the volume traded was well below expectations, with an average of less than 100,000 tons per day, since the price offered by the industry for the purchase of merchandise did not meet the producers’ forecasts. While the former offered $95,000 a ton, farmers understood that the price should be around $105,000 a ton, the analysts consulted by Infobae agreed.

This situation, added to the successive cuts in the production estimate for the crop, which went from 22.5 million tons at the time of start-up, to 21 million tons at present, led to the initial expectation of the volume to be traded is truncated. However, the improvement in the price that was offered after the fourth week of validity of the PIE boosted sales and the average daily volume came to be between 250,000 and 300,000 tons, with peaks that exceeded 500,000 tons.

Regarding the settlement of foreign exchange by the agricultural export sector, so far in the measure, USD 5,080 million have been entered into the Single and Free Exchange Market (MULC), thanks to the record settlement of USD 1,052 million. Still with two days to go to continue with the inflow of dollars, the USD 5,000 million that was initially expected has already been exceeded.

The commercialization of sunflower, fodder barley and sorghum under this scheme also ended. Thus, the first totaled 1.15 million tons sold, while the second closed at 645,000 tons and the last of these at just over 105,000 tons. Unlike soybeans, the foreign exchange settlement for these products will last until August 31, as is also the case with regional economies.

Although the measure reached its original goal in terms of dollar income, it was not possible to commercialize it in volume. For the director of the consultancy AZ Group, Sebastián Salvaro, there was a combination of factors that did not allow it. Added to a very meager harvest due to the drought, estimated at 20 million tons, there is no great need to purchase inputs for the wheat campaign as a consequence of the drought, which did not lead to “important sales” by the farmers. Thus, “purchases of seeds and fertilizers were postponed waiting for the rains, which just arrived at the end of May, coinciding with the expiration of the soybean dollar 3.”

In addition, “the inflationary context did not boost sales either,” said Salvaro and stressed that “it must be taken into account that, as May wore on, inflation rose and eroded the $300 per dollar that he proposed by about 8% per month. the program initially, while financial dollars went up significantly in the same period.”

Although there was a good participation of the producers to the extent given the volume sold, beyond the fact that it did not reach the 10 million tons estimated at the beginning, the agricultural entities and other institutions linked to agriculture were critical of the official plan.

“The soybean dollar was an instrument that the government used to cover a collection need, not to benefit the producer. From our entity we had warned that the measure was not going to work because it was circumstantial and brought intra-chain problems such as cost increases to other subsectors that use this oilseed as animal feed,” the president of the Argentine Rural Society (SRA) told Infobae. Nicholas Pino.

In this sense, the agricultural leader stated that “the different exchange rates make the agro-industrial chain lose competitiveness and that is why we hope that the new government will unify the dollar that all Argentines need to be able to develop our economy. Meanwhile, within the macroeconomic imbalances, the Central Bank continues without repealing the resolution that makes loans to the sector more expensive.

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