2.4 South America

The reporting period covers the main growing period of summer crops, as well as the harvest of earlier planted crops. Overall, the situation for South America is near average.

RAIN showed four homogeneous patterns distributed along a South-North direction. Argentina and Uruguay were dominated by a nearly stable rainfall profile with slight positive anomalies in March and April (light green area). Southern Brazil and Paraguay showed a slightly negative anomaly pattern that decreased over time. The northern area of Brazil was mixed with two profile patterns. Both had high positive anomalies in February. The blue area shows a relevant negative anomaly in March and the dark green area shows a positive spike in precipitation departure from the mean in April.

Despite the fact that several homogeneous regions were defined for TEMP, it is difficult to find clear differences among the temperature profiles. Most of the profiles showed a high positive deviation, i.e., warmer conditions than usual, during March and a negative anomaly followed by a positive anomaly during April. For the North of the Brazilian agricultural region (red area), a more stable pattern with a slight variation in anomaly values around zero was observed.

Most BIOMSS anomalies were in the range of -10% to =10%. Positive deviations were observed in the Southern Pampas and South and North West of Brazilian agricultural regions. Negative anomalies were mostly observed in the North East. Almost all cropland was farmed (CALF = 1), except for small areas in the South West Pampas.

Maximum VCI showed good conditions (values higher than 0.8) in most of the zones. Values higher than one were mostly observed in the North of Brazil. Lower values were observed in areas of uncropped farmlands in the South West Pampas and in South Brazil.

The statistical analysis of the proportions of different categories of drought showed drought conditions were getting more severe starting in early March, when the maximum proportion of cropland suffering from drought reached 30%. This coincided with the below-average rainfall in that month. The drought might also be a result of positive anomaly in temperature and sunshine.

In general, South America show good conditions for crop production with near-average rainfall, although some positive and negative anomalies in rainfall and temperatures were observed. BIOMSS trends tended to be positive and near optimum values of VCIx were observed.

Figure 2.3 South America MPZ: Agroclimatic and agronomic indicators, January to April 2020.

a. Spatial distribution of rainfall profiles b. Profiles of rainfall departure from average (mm)

c. Spatial distribution of temperature profiles d. Profiles of temperature departure from average (°C)

e. Potential biomass departure from 5YA

f. Cropped and uncropped arable land

g. Maximum VCI

h. Proportion of different drought categories from January to April 2020