Key Argentina soy area still coping with late 2016 floods

By Maximilian Heath PERGAMINO, Argentina (Reuters) - Soy grower Carlos Zucarelli looks over his farm in Argentina's bread-basket province of Buenos Aires, watching ducks float around on a shallow lake covering much of what was meant to be this year's crop area. His and other farms in the area of Pergamino in northern Buenos Aires are still suffering from the effects of heavy December and January rains that flooded about 20 percent of their fields. Of Zucarelli's 70 hectares, 40 percent is underwater. "It's irrecoverable because there's no time left to replant soy. It's still going to take time for this part of the farm to dry out," he said, the ducks quacking in the background. Elsewhere in Buenos Aires province and the southern part of the neighboring province of Santa Fe, flood-related losses are estimated by the Rosario grains exchange at 660,000 hectares. The exchange sees Argentina's soy harvest at 52.9 million tonnes, under the 55.3 million tonnes produces in 2015-16. The flooding in the world's No. 3 soybean exporter caused soybean and soymeal prices on the Chicago Board of Trade to hit six-month highs last week. In Pergamino as a whole, farmers say about 20 percent of seeded crop land has been overcome by excessive moisture. Another farmer down the road is Ariel Pizi, who says about 12 percent of his planting area has been lost. Close to the flooded parts of his farm, soy leaves are turning yellow rather than the usual green, meaning they are also suffering from too much rain. "The losses are just enough to wipe out our profit margin," he said. The water on his and other farms has turned what should be green fields into a range of yellowish colors punctuated by black splotches of land that will not be replanted this year. Some 500 millimeters of water have fallen in this area since late December, said Luis Crosetti, advisor to the Pergamino chapter of the AFA (Federation of Argentina Farmers). "If the rains continue the production losses will be ... bigger," Crosetti said. The agriculture minister has not yet issued a soy harvest estimate but he told local media that he expected the December and January rains to have "a strong effect on production." (Reporting by Maximilian Heath; Writing by Hugh Bronstein; Editing by James Dalgleish)