Soybean planting in Argentina’s core agricultural belt is lagging far behind last year due to a lack of rain, the Rosario Grain Exchange said in a report on Friday.

This year’s drought has affected wheat production and now threatens to affect the upcoming soybean and corn seasons, and unless weather conditions improve, farmers may reduce investment in soybean plantings.

The exchange said that the extreme weather conditions are now putting soybean cultivation in trouble. A year ago, half of the soybeans in the area had been planted, but now only 250,000 hectares, or 5%, have been planted. And there are no rain forecasts for the next week. It was also the most difficult and uncertain planting season in 12 years.

The exchange now expects 17 million hectares of soybeans planted in Argentina in 2022/23.

The exchange warned that the weather forecast for the first two weeks of the first half of November was not optimistic, and the rains in recent weeks, while helping to improve soil moisture in some areas, were not enough to reverse the drought. Extreme drought means that precipitation gaps remain significant.