Soybean planting in Brazil is advancing at its slowest pace in the last eight years

SAO PAULO, (Reuters) - Brazil's 2023/24 soybean planting reached 74% of the planned area as of Thursday, agribusiness consultancy AgRural said on Monday, its slowest pace of progress for the period in eight years. as the country deals with bad weather. Planting was up 6 percentage points on the previous week, but remained well behind last year's levels, when 87% of areas had been planted by the same date, and is now the slowest since 2015/16 . AgRural said in a statement that last week's progress was limited by excess humidity in Brazil's southernmost state, Rio Grande do Sul, even as some needed rainfall was recorded in the north-central states. The South American country, the world's largest producer and exporter of soybeans, has seen farmers struggle with low humidity and high temperatures in north-central areas, while southern states face excessive rainfall. Bad weather led several consultancies to cut their forecasts for 2023/24 soybean production last week, although analysts ...