|
 A highly nutritious plant variety used to feed animals, which is being broadly used by Brazilian farmers, at a clip of about 2 million tons a year, has its origin in an Arab country. It is sorghum sudanense, also known as sorgo sudan, originally from Sudan.
"As a rule, sorghum came from North Africa, and has been known in Brazil since the 1960s, but it was only from a few years ago until now that it started to be used more frequently," said José Avelino Santos Rodrigues, researcher at the Corn and Sorghum Division of Embrapa (Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation).
In the 2000 crop, Brazilian sorghum production did not reach 1 million tons. In the following years, it totaled almost 2 million tons. In the last crop, production reached 1.5 million tons, according to a survey conducted by the National Food Supply Company (Conab). Sorghum production in the country grew 0.8% this year in comparison with last year's crop.
In Brazil, from 80% to 90% of all planted sorghum consists of hybrids. Even the sorghum sudanense used in the country is a crossing between the original plant from Sudan and sorghum bicolor.
The combination results in a product of high nutritious quality and productivity, according to Rodrigues. The product has up to 18% more protein than the other varieties, which makes it suitable for animal feed.
According to Rodrigues, in addition to being used as animal feed, hybrid sorghum can also be used as human food, as happens in Africa. Sorghum is consumed by the population of some African countries.
According to the researcher, the product can be used in the manufacturing of cereal bars, flour for bakery, industrial starch, and alcohol, among other items. Sorghum is useful for crop rotation, in plantations such as soybean, and has a faster cycle than other types of pastures.
Sorghum sudanense is also used in its original form, without hybridization, by farmers in the southernmost Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul. Its main advantage, in this case, is the fact that it grows well in temperate climates and is resistant to drought, conditions that are common to farmers in some regions of the state. "Farmers in Rio Grande do Sul need a good, fast pasture," he said.
Another advantage in planting sorghum has to do with the use of direct seeding. In this system, the next culture is sowed without plowing the earth, or removing remainders from the previous culture. Sorghum produces good stubble for direct seeding, which is broadly used in the culture that is commonly rotated with sorghum in Brazil: soybean.
Presently, sorghum culture has been expanding a lot due to crop rotation, especially in the midwestern Brazilian states of Goiás, Mato Grosso, Mato Grosso do Sul and the southeastern Brazilian state of Minas Gerais.
These states concentrate 85% of all grain sorghum planted in the country. According to Rodrigues, sorghum may partially replace corn as poultry, swine, and cattle feed. Its commercial value, however, is 20% lower than corn's.
According to data supplied by Embrapa, leading sorghum producing countries last year were Nigeria, 9.8 million tons, the United States, 7.2 million tons, India, 7 million, Mexico, 5.4 million and Sudan, 5.2 million. The three leading consumer countries were India, Nigeria and Sudan.
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.