|
Brazil's animal feed industry presented its results for the year of 2006. Below expectations, the sector should end the year with production of 48.4 million tons - growth of just 2.5% when compared to last year.
The forecast, according to Mário Sérgio Cutait, head of the National Union of Animal Feed Industry (Sindirações), had been for growth of 10%. Among the reasons for the low growth is avian flu, which affected the Asian and European countries, and the cases of foot and mouth disease that arose in the Brazilian states of Mato Grosso do Sul and Paraná early this year. Apart from that, Cutait recalled the bureaucratic problems that make it hard for foreign inputs to enter the country and also for the export due to delays of over thirty days in Brazilian ports. The problem he calls "blackout of ports" is identified mainly in the port of Santos, the largest in Brazil and where 50% of the articles imported by producers in the sector and 43% of the exported products cross. Another bottleneck for exporters is, as occurs in all sectors, the tax system. According to Cutait, in some sectors the volume of taxes is as high as 50% of the value of the product. Still, the union is celebrating some good results. Exports, for example, should reach US$ 130 million, against US$ 120.4 million last year. The main export product is pet food. However, the sector trade balance is still out of proportion: for the US$ 130 million in products exported, US$ 400 million of inputs were imported. "But this has been changing," stated Cutait. Currently, 80% of the sector production is consumed in Brazil. The remaining 20% is exported to over 40 countries. Pet food was also the sector that grew most in terms of production in 2006, 7.58% more than in 2005. And pork feed grew 6%. According to Cutait, the forecast is that in 2007 the other sectors like poultry feed and dairy cattle feed should grow 7%. To the president of the Sindirações, the best way to make the sector grow is increasing the population's consumption of food. "Today, Brazilians eat on average 90 kg of meats a year, whereas the Europeans eat 130 kg, including cattle beef, pork, poultry and fish. Therefore, there is space for growth," he says. "But the population will only eat more meat if there is an increase in income. While there is not an increase in buying power, the sector will not grow as desired." Latin Union The Sindirações and similar organizations in Mexico and Argentina are studying the creation of a Latin American association to defend the sector. In January, the three organizations should meet in Atlanta (USA) to discuss the matter. The idea, according to Cutait, is to make this association a kind of spokesperson in negotiations with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Also for 2007, the Sindirações is organizing the II Global Feed & Food, an event to take place in April, in São Paulo, the largest business center in Brazil. The congress is organized in partnership with the FAO and the IFIF (International Feed Industry Federation). The theme of the event is sustainability, how to get ready to provide food for the whole of the population in a responsible manner, preserving the environment. Anba - www.anba.com.br
 |
Subscribe to this comment's feed
Brazil received a huge boost in its international image with its selection as the host of the 2016 Olympics, but it was really just the cherry on top of the overall recognition of the country's ascension to the ranks of one of the world's most important countries. Now, as it finally takes its place on the world scene, there has been a great deal of concern about what kind of image Brazil hopes to project, now that the world is really paying attention. 
The only good thing to say about the visit to Brazil of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, on Monday November 23, is that it was mercifully short and lasted less than 24 hours. Ahmadinejad had his picture taken being hugged by president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva who gave him a warm welcome and said Iran had every right to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. 
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.