Nelson Paludo just got back from several days of off-farm meetings, and boy, he likes what he sees. The head of the local agriculture syndicate in Toledo, Parana, says “This season, the Parana soybean crop will be good.”

Paludo, whose farm lies about 100 miles north of the triple border between Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay, says several cold snaps earlier in the season made local producers worry a bit about final yields. But he thinks those cooler days may have been more of a blessing than a curse.

“All that did was to slow down crop development, and yields are going to be better than in recent years” in Brazil’s second-largest soybean-producing state.

Late development

Normally in that part of the country a good chunk of the beans would have been planted by now—with second-crop corn planting starting up. We chatted on January 29, and Paludo figures that there are ten to fifteen days to go before the local harvest starts in earnest.

Even so, the early yields are looking good, and Paludo thinks he might get as high as 67 bushels per acre, which is far better than the 53 he got last time around. And that’s not bad if the number holds up across all his 670 acres of beans.

Local issues but overall good yield promise

Naturally, not everyone is going to do so well. Paludo points out that some neighbors in localized parts of the state are suffering from dry spells that will cut their yields locally. But Brazil’s Conab—an agency of the Ministry of Agriculture—says producers across the state of Parana are likely to average 48.2 bushels per acre this season versus 45.9 in 2015-16.

Those in Tocantins state and parts of Goias are suffering from dry spells as well. But when you add in big producer Mato Grosso, where almost everybody is enjoying good weather, it adds up a potential 103.8 million-tonne 2016-17 Brazilian soybean crop.

The opinions of the author are not necessarily those of Farm Futures or Penton Agriculture.