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Brazil to pass US as world's top corn exporter
The South American agricultural giant, already the world's top producer and exporter of soybeans, is on track to export 50 million tonnes of corn in 2023.
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Corn sits at a grain storage in a farm, in Timar, Hungary, April 19, 2023. (Reuters/BERNADETT SZABO)
B
razil is set to pass the United States this year as the world's top corn exporter, ending years of US dominance thanks to a bumper harvest, officials said Wednesday.
The South American agricultural giant, already the world's top producer and exporter of soybeans, is on track to export 50 million tonnes of corn in 2023, "surpassing US exports," the state-run National Supply Company (Conab) said in its latest production report.
The forecast roughly aligns with projections from the US Department of Agriculture, which had said in an August report that Brazilian corn exports were on track to reach 56 million tonnes this year, surpassing the United States, at 41.3 million.
However, the US remains the world number one corn producer, at 348.8 million tonnes, more than double Brazil's forecast of 131.9 million.
Brazil's claim to the corn export crown comes largely thanks to a climate that allows its farmers to harvest three times a year, with particularly good weather conditions this year fueling a bumper crop.
Productivity gains also played a big role.
Brazil's corn harvest is set to increase by 16.6 percent this year, boosted by an increase in productivity per hectare of 13 percent, including record-breaking levels in the key central-western grain-producing state of Mato Grosso, Conab said.
The country's farmers planted a record 22.3 million hectares of corn this year, up 3.2 percent from last year.
Brazil had only broken US farmers' decades of dominance in corn exports once previously, in 2013.
Brazil also has a record soy crop this year, with 154.6 million tonnes harvested, up 10.9 percent from the previous record, in 2020-2021.
