Production cost estimates for the corn, soybean and cotton crops in Brazil's Mato Grosso state fell slightly in July, although fertilizer costs remain on an upwards trend.
Estimates of operation costs — which include inputs, machinery and labor, among others — for the 2024-25 soybean crop fell by 0.3pc to R3,972/hectare ($772/ha) from June, according to the state's agricultural economics institute Imea. That is 3.7pc below the R4,125/ha for the 2023-24 cycle.
Estimated pesticide costs dropped by 1.3pc to R1,166/ha from June's report. That is also below the R1,305/ha for the prior oilseed crop.
Costs with seeds were projected at R677/ha, slightly flat from R678/ha in June but almost 1.3pc above the R668/ha in the 2023-24 crop.
Estimates for fertilizer costs increased further to R1,720/ha in July from R1,715/ha in the prior month. But that is still 4.7pc below the R1,805/ha fertilizer costs in the 2023-24 crop.
Corn
Expected production costs for the 2024-25 corn crop using advanced technologies were almost flat at R3,226/ha, compared with R3,229/ha in June.
Production costs in the 2023-24 crop reached R3,284/ha.
Estimated pesticide and seed costs dropped by 2.3pc and 2.2pc to R762/ha and R815/ha in July, respectively, from the prior month.
That is 3.9pc and 8.5pc above costs with pesticide and seeds reported in the 2023-24 crop, respectively.
Forecasts for fertilizer costs increased by 2.8pc to R1,259/ha last month from June's projection. But that is below the R1,519/ha reported in the previous crop.
Cotton
Imea slightly reduced its projection for 2024-25 cotton costs production to R9,812/ha in July from R9,815/ha in the prior month.
That is 0.1pc above the R9,802/ha set in the 2023-24 season.
Estimate pesticide costs fell by 0.9pc to R4,334/ha in July from the prior month. That represents a 0.8pc increase from 2023-24 pesticide costs.
On the other hand, forecasts for fertilizer and seeds costs increased by 1pc and 0.2pc to R3,449/ha and R987/ha, respectively, from the prior report.
In the previous cycle, fertilizer and seed costs stood at R3,405/ha and R1,058/ha, respectively.
Estimated costs in July were calculated based on an average currency exchange rate of R5.1469/$1 for soybeans, R5.2320/$1 for corn and R5.1586/$1 for cotton.
