Palm | Kelapa Sawit

SAO PAULO, July 30 (Reuters) - Strong Brazilian soybeans prices were driving aggressive forward sales of next crop, but volatile markets have paralyzed sales in physical, old-crop beans, local grains analysts Celeres said on Monday.

Brazilian soybean producers are selling the 2012/13 crop earlier than ever before with 41 percent of next season's output already sold, two months before planting starts. That is up from the 39 percent last week. Celeres said 10 percent of the then-new crop was sold by the week of July 27, 2011.

Record high soybean prices due to drought in the United States, the world's largest producer, and the weak real against the dollar have induced local growers to lock in forward sales of the current and future crops at record volumes, Celeres said.

The current crop that ended harvest in May is well advanced historically in sales. Producers sold 97 percent of the 65 million tonnes crop by last week, up from 79 percent last year at this time, but unchanged from the week before.

Celeres said the sharp decline in futures prices over the past week, after rains returned to parts of the U.S. grain belt, chilled the sale by local producers of their few remaining old crop beans.

Conditions appear almost perfect for the soy belt to reclaim territory lost to corn and cotton in past years, while extending its reach into untapped pasture land. (nL1E8GVIL2)

Celeres said that returns on corn versus soybeans in important grain states were not as attractive as in 2011 and the early part of this year, which would induce farmers to sow as much soy as possible this planting season starting in September.

The analysts estimate potential returns from a bag of soy were almost three times those of corn for the coming crop. The bumper winter corn harvest would keep local prices contained for the coming weeks and favor planting of soy during the main summer crop season.

Brazil is the world's second-biggest soybean producer after the United States.