|
 Fair weather and bigger demand for food from overseas should contribute for Brazil's grain crop that started in August and should last until late July next year to exceed the previous one by up to 6.5 million tons.
The first survey of the 2009/2010 cycle - carried out by the National Food Supply Company (Conab) and disclosed October 7 - estimates a harvest of between 139 million and 141.6 million tons, growth of between 2.9% and 4.8% compared with the 135.1 million tons harvested in the previous crop.
The increase in production is a consequence of the recovery of productivity, taking into consideration that planted area should range from 47.35 million to 48.06 million hectares, a variation of between -0.7% and 0.7% compared with the 2008/2009 cycle, when drought in southern Brazilian states led to significant losses, particularly in corn and soy cultures.
"We are not expecting to have as many weather-related issues as we did last year. This helps to place Brazil closer to the record-high figure of 144.1 million tons," said the president of the Conab, Wagner Rossi, in a press release.
To him, the low market price of corn should lead some of the farmers to replace the grain with soy crops, which may see record-high output.
The Conab estimates that the planted area for soy should grow between 2.6% and 4.2% and may total 22.65 million hectares, nearly half the planted area for grain. The average productivity should increase by 6.3%, totaling 2,794 kilograms per hectare and generating a harvest of between 62.26 million and 63.27 million tons, growth of up to 10.8%.
The survey was conducted from September 14th to 18th in the South, Southeast and Midwest regions of Brazil. In the North and Northeast regions, planting starts in December, therefore the Conab used data pertaining to the previous crop and average productivity for the past five years, not taking atypical years into account.
ABr
 |
Subscribe to this comment's feed
The small, coastal town of Condé is located just a twenty minute's drive from João Pessoa, the capital of Paraíba. The Northeast of Brazil has historically been a place of encounter and mixing between peoples. For millenia groups of indigenous people fished, farmed, migrated and sometimes fought along this large, fertile area. 
The Brazilian diplo-MÁ-cia (bad diplomacy) carries on its accelerated course towards the non-acknowledgment of human rights, although sometimes it takes pleasure in saying that it does precisely the opposite. The visit of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is another example of a diplomatic omission that verges on hypocrisy. 
On July 4, 2006, representatives of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay met in Caracas to sign the protocol for the entrance of Venezuela into the Southern Common Market (Mercosur). After two and a half years, the protocol was approved by the legislative bodies of Argentina and Uruguay, and as of now it may be only days away from being ratified by the continent's economic megalith, Brazil. 
Some sectors of the fight against AIDS have suggested that Thabo Mbeki, the former president of South Africa, committed genocide through his absence from the fight against the illness in his country throughout his two terms. 
One hundred and eleven years after Brazil abolished slavery, the number of workers deprived of their freedom is still huge. They raise cattle, produce charcoal, sugar cane or timber. Some of them, most undocumented Bolivians, work in basements of small apparel factories in São Paulo and other metropolis. 
On November 7, 2009 a few friends and I had an opportunity to take a look inside a Brazilian jail outside the city of Rio de Janeiro. We were able to take some amateur footage of our experience on video (see link below). It's no surprise, of course, that the typical Brazilian jail lacks some of the functionality of those in North America or Europe, but our experience that day was quite shocking. 
Depletion of the Amazon Rainforest is not a new concern facing environmentalists, biologists, ecologists, and a growing number of the Amazonian indigenous peoples. For decades they have feared for the fate of the world's most biologically diverse and species-rich hothouse. 
Geisy Arruda made history this week in Brazil, but for all the wrong reasons. What began as a poorly planned fashion statement has become a worldwide tale. Geisy decided to wear a pink mini-dress to her private college in São Paulo state, and after that, all hell broke loose. 
The push of vigilante groups in Rio de Janeiro's favelas (shantytowns) in the last three years is the most important and alarming information of the just-released study by the Rio de Janeiro University's Violence Research Center (Nupev-Uerj). 
A dispute over drug trafficking territory in Rio de Janeiro has intensified lately, leaving in its wake unprecedented acts of violence, such as the downing of a police helicopter in the northern zone of the city on October 17. Three policemen died and another two were injured. This event has drawn the attention of the international media, who are raising the issue of public security for the 2016 Olympics to be held in Rio.
while many brazilians cant afford to buy a bag of beans