OREANDA-NEWS. February 06, 2015. Argentina will produce a record-high soybean crop of 57 million tonnes in the 2014-15 season, the Buenos Aires Grains Exchange said on Thursday in its first harvest forecast for this crop year. Farmers in the Pampas grains belt will start harvesting soy next month. The country's biggest soy crop to date was 55 million tonnes, harvested in the 2009-10 season.

The exchange left its planting area estimate for this crop year unchanged at a record 20.4 million hectares. Argentina is the world's top supplier of soymeal livestock feed and the No. 3 exporter of raw soybeans, after the United States and Brazil.

"Over much of the central farm belt, soil moisture varies between adequate and optimum. There are some isolated dry areas in Cordoba province and parts of central-northern and central-eastern Entre Rios that are excessively wet," the exchange said in its weekly report.

"But early yield estimates in the great majority of these areas, where crops are in an advanced reproduction stage, are close to all-time highs," the report said.

Soy farming has boomed in the South American country due to the strict export limits the government slaps on corn and wheat.

Farmers say the wheat and corn export quotas make it difficult to plan how much of those crops to grow. The US Department of Agriculture expects Argentina's 2014-15 soy harvest to be 55 million tonnes.