On February 18, the Fecoagro co-operatives federation in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil's No.3 soya state, said it had reduced its forecast for the states output to 7.5 million tonnes from 9.4 million seen initially because of the lack of rain.
On February 10, Celeres consultants reduced slightly their soyabean harvest forecast to 62.22 million tonnes from the 62.69 million seen in January and 63.88 million seen in December.
On February 9, the US Department of Agriculture pared its estimate for the Brazilian soya crop to 63 million tonnes from its previous estimate of 64 million.
Output from Brazil's previous 2003/04 soyabean crop was hurt by a severe drought in the south and heavy losses from Asian soya rust fungus fanned by heavy rain in the center-west.
Forecasters and analysts say disease has been modest this year and rainfall across the main soyabean growing states normal to favourable, except for Rio Grande do Sul.
Brazil has harvested about 6 percent of the soya crop as of February 18, according to Safras.
On January 27, Brazil's soya crop was revised up to a record 63.43 million tonnes, from 63.24 million in December by the government's IBGE statistics office in its third forecast.
On January 14, AgRural consultants said Brazil is expected to harvest a 62.6 million tonnes soyabean crop compared with an average 62.1 million tonnes seen in October.
On December 14, Brazil's crop supply department Conab put the new crop at 61.4 million tonnes in its second of six annual grain crop forecasts, up from October's estimate of 59.5 to 60.8 million and the 2003/04 harvest of 49.8 million. The next Conab forecast is due in early March. In July, Safras put the new crop at 66.6 million tonnes.
Brazil is the second largest producer and exporter of soya after the United States and is expected to become the world leader in the next few years.