Peanuts: Argentine Planting Off To Reasonable Start, Export Report Includes U.S.-Bound Tonnage

Andres H. “Hari” Georgalos -- who operates the Argentine trading company Georgalos Peanut World in Río Segundo, Cordoba -- filed the following report on crop planting progress and exports, which include some tonnage that ended up in the U.S.

About 5% of the anticipated 2009-10 Argentine peanut crop still has not been planted due to dry conditions. Although the area under these conditions is not highly significant, this continues to be a very worrying situation because of the lateness of the planting period at this point.

Fields planted early (in October) look good, with appropriate stands. The fields planted during November germinated well, without having significant emergence problems, so far. Wind damage was reported in some fields, leading to replanting in some cases.

Argentine HPS peanut kernel exports reached 350,000 tons in the January-October period. That number does not include the shipments of peanutbutter, peanut oil, peanut flours and pellets.

The main destination was Holland at 142,000 tons, followed by England with 32,000, Russia at 30,000, Algeria with 27,500, Poland with 14,000 and France importing 13,000.

The rest is distributed in other 60 countries, including 5,500 tons of "peanut of Cordoba" shipped to the United States.