By Maximilian Heath

BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) -Argentina’s agricultural heartland has been lashed by heavy rains in recent days, leaving some soy fields underwater with up to 400 millimeters (15.75 inches) of precipitation recorded in certain areas bringing widespread flooding.

“Everywhere you looked was like a sea of water,” grains farmer Martin Vivanco told Reuters by phone on Monday from San Antonio de Areco, a rural area 100 kilometers (62.14 miles) west of the capital city, Buenos Aires.

“Some of the farmland in lower regions is completely covered in water and will be very hard to harvest. Some people even lost their farms.”

Argentina is the world’s top exporter of soybean oil and soybean meal, and the No. 3 exporter of corn.

The precipitation is some three to four times normal levels for May, according to German Heinzenknecht, a meteorologist at Applied Climatology Consulting, raising farmers’ fears that the soy and corn crops could suffer major losses.

The heavy rains from Thursday to Saturday added to already-abundant showers in recent months, said Heinzenknecht.

“The amount of water that fell was absolutely ludicrous,” said Heinzenknecht. “Even if it had only rained 150 mm, we would have still faced flooding.”

Farmers have been facing delays in harvesting the current soy crop due to the wet fields and muddy roads. Putting off harvesting can cause crops to develop disease or seed pods to open, also causing losses.

In Salto, another agricultural area north of Buenos Aires, storms flooded 171,000 hectares with 330 mm of water, according to farmer Esteban Plazibat.

“I have silobags and I know I will have problems. I have them in high places, but this time even the high places were flooded,” he explained. The floods are affecting chicken and pig farms in the area as well, he added.

Silobags are large bags that farmers can use to store over 200 tons of soybeans. These bags are widely used in Argentina and can be seen in fields across the country.

Soy that has not yet been harvested is also at risk given that collection was already delayed due to excess water in the soil. Major delays imply potential losses due to crop disease or pod openings in the field.

Though corn is more tolerant to water, Vivanco explained that some fields saw water levels of over a meter, which can impact the plant’s development.

Farmers’ association CARBAP showed images on social media platform X of fields underwater and impassable farm roads.

The heavy rains also caused flooding in some cities in the Buenos Aires province, where locals had to be evacuated from their homes.

Prior to the most recent rains, the Buenos Aires grains exchange estimated the current soybean crop to reach 50 million metric tons and the corn crop to reach 49 million tons, respectively. Both crops are in their harvesting stage.

“Everything is affected. This is unlike anything we’ve seen before,” Vivanco said.

(Reporting by Maximilian Heath; Writing by Kylie Madry and Rafael Escalera Montoto; Editing by Aida Pelaez-Fernandez, Jan Harvey and Aurora Ellis)