(Agriculture.com) – Brazil shipped 7.65 million tonnes of corn in August, the highest monthly amount ever, as traders took advantage of a record local crop and a favorable exchange rate, government data showed on Monday. Brazil corn exports in August surpassed the previous monthly record posted in July and were more than double the 2.9 million tonnes shipped in the same month a year earlier. Corn export activity outshone Brazil’s No. 1 dollar earner soybeans, whose volume fell to 5.33 million tonnes in August. That was below the previous month and far less than the August 2018 total that exceeded 8 million tonnes, when farmers were benefiting from the start of the trade war.
Ethanol exports in August were also a strong 314 million liters, the highest since October 2013. Brazilian mills are producing record amounts of ethanol for the second year in a row. The depressed sugar market has led plants to allocate more cane to produce the fuel than the sweetener. Although most ethanol sales are in the lucrative local market, the weak local currency could have boosted export opportunities. The Trade Ministry has yet to release data related to main destinations, but Brazil routinely ships small volumes do the United States and to Asian countries such as Japan and South Korea.
Coffee exports continued high, near 3 million bags helped by good crops last year and this year, while sugar volumes remained low at around 1.5 million tonnes, very far from the monthly record of 3.17 million tonnes posted on October 2012.
See numbers for the main commodities exported by Brazil: AUG 2019 JULY 2019 AUG 2018 CORN (MLN T) 7.65 6.32 2.90 COFFEE(MLN BAGS) 2.98 2.81 2.25 CRUDE OIL (MLN T) 4.74 3.86 4.35 ETHANOL (MLN LTR) 314.4 206.7 241.3 SOYBEANS (MLN T) 5.32 7.82 8.12 IRON ORE (MLN T) 30.11 34.27 35.62 SUGAR RAW (MLN T) 1.51 1.69 1.43
