<article><p class="lead">Argentinian wheat sales in the week to 5 October dropped to their lowest since March 2020 on mounting concerns over drought-induced harvest losses.</p><p>Argentinian farmer wheat sales totalled nearly 82,000t in the past reporting week, down from 103,400t a week ago and 530,000t a year ago. Of this, just 9,000t were for the 2022-23 crop, with the remainder for the current year's harvest. About 75pc of the 2022-23 crop was earmarked for exports, while more than 80pc of the 2021-22 crop was headed to the domestic market.</p><p>This brought accumulated 2022-23 wheat sales to 5.3mn t, lagging year-ago levels of 7.8mn t. Meanwhile, 2021-22 crop wheat sales stood at 22.3mn t, ahead of year-earlier levels of 16.5mn t. </p><p>Weakening sales and unfavourable prospects for the harvest prompted the US Department of Agriculture to revise down projections for Argentina's 2022-23 wheat exports to 12mn t on 12 October, from 13mn t expected previously. This would also be below the 16.25mn t estimated for 2021-22.</p><p>As for corn, weekly new-crop export sales rose to 314,000t in the latest reporting week, up by 190,000t from seven days earlier. Accumulated new-crop corn sales now reached 5.2mn t, lagging year-ago levels of 7.8mn t.</p><h2>Oilseeds</h2><p class="lead">Old-crop soybean sales fell sharply, by 1.4mn t, to 376,000t, following the expiry of the government's favourable US dollar exchange rate for trade of the crop.</p><p>About 214,000t of this total were destined for the domestic market, with the rest sold for exports. At the same time, new-crop sales rose by 8,800t on the week to 103,000t, with the entire volume sold to the domestic market.</p><p>Accumulated old-crop soybean sales reached 30.7mn t, which lagged year-ago levels of 31.5mn t.</p><p class="bylines"><i>By Michael Hanbury</i></p></article>
