1/6/2003 (Country Report Argentina) - Contrasting performances areexpected between cereals and oilseeds in the 2002/03 (June-May) harvest.According to official estimates, the area sown with cereals will contractby 12.5%. Over half of the fall will be explained by the area sown withwheat, a by-product of the critical conditions prevailing at the turn ofthe year, including financial constraints, input shortages anduncertainty. Oilseed production, by contrast, has benefited from thenormalisation of the input market and producers' self-financing fromstocks accumulated in the previous campaign. According to officialestimates, the area sown with sunflower is estimated to increase by 20%,while that sown with soybeans will rise by 6%. The US Department ofAgriculture estimates that Argentina will reach a new record output of32.5m tonnes.