ARGENTINA'S farmers kicked off the 2007-08 wheat harvest this week, reaping the crop from 3 per cent of the 4.4 million hectares planted this season, the Buenos Aires Cereals Exchange said in its weekly crop report last Friday.

Argentina is expected to produce 11 million tonnes this season, down 28 per cent from last season, according to the Exchange.

Yields so far are low at 0.86 tonnes a hectare, but the early harvest is taking place in the northern provinces, which suffered from drought through much of the growing season.

In addition, some fields were lost this week due to hail storms in the north of Buenos Aires province and south of CordobaBuenos Aires, compensating for any hail losses, the Exchange said. province. However, the increased moisture will help the crop in the central areas of Buenos Aires, compensating for any hail losses, the Exchange said.

Soybeans

ARGENTINA'S farmers took advantage of good soil moisture levels to press forward with early soy planting this week, with 670,000ha  planted with the beans so far, the exchange said.

Argentina is expected to plant a record 18.2 million hectares with soybeans this season, according to the exchange. The area is expected to rise by 1.3 million hectares from the previous record set last season.

"The increase is due to the decreased area cultivated with wheat and less area expected to be planted with corn and sunflower seeds," the exchange said.

To date, farmers have panted 3.7 per cent of the area seen going to soybeans, down 0.8 percentage points from this point last season.

Corn

FARMERS also took advantage of the significant rainfall across the farm belt this week to surge forward with corn planting. Early planting is almost complete, except in the south of Buenos Aires province where planting generally takes place later, the exchange said.

To date, 60 per cent of the 2.7 million hectares seen going to corn have been seeded, 5.8 percentage points behind last year's pace.

Sunflower Seeds

FARMERS  have planted 30.5 per cent of the 2.34 million hectares seen going to sunseeds this year, 13.8 percentage points behind the pace at this time last year, according to the exchange.

Increased rainfall in the northern sunseed areas will allow planting to proceed, but farmers are turning away from the oilseed in many areas due to falling prices for the crop, according to the exchange.

Estimates for Argentina's 2008-09 crop production in millions of hectares or millions of metric tonnes.

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