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Farming in Brazil has many parallels to Midwestern
farming, and just as many differences.
Our harvest season started Feb. 28, beginning with our popcorn. I hoped that our
popcorn would yield around 50 sacks per hectare (47 bu./acre). I’m pleased that
our average yield on the 494 acres came
in at 58 sacks per hectare (55 bu./acre). The price continues to hold around
$12-14/bu. I’ve had mixed feelings on the popcorn this year, but it gives us an
early cash flow and we’re able to double-crop edible beans behind it. I plan to
expand our popcorn acres next year because it really improves our dollars per
acre.
The crops continue to look good. Many farmers will start harvesting
soybeans early this year (March 20). Many of the first soybeans appear to be
very good, some early fields coming in at 50-plus sacks per hectare (44 bu./acre).
With the nearly perfect
growing season this year, everybody should have fantastic beans. Cotton also
continues to look good. The earlier planted cotton has set about 80% of its
bolls and early projections would have it yielding well above the 250 arroba
yield (or 2.7 bales/acre or 1,335 lbs. per acre). However, there is a lot of
time left on cotton. The early planted cotton that looks so good right now may
lose a lot of the bottom bolls on the plant due to boll-rot, a condition that
happens when we get too much rain and the lower cotton bolls rot off because
they can’t dry out.
February was an interesting month with nearly all of our
investors making a trip to Bahia to check out the farming operation, crops and
future growth opportunities. For many, this was their first trip to Brazil, and
I could see the same excitement on many of their faces that I had when I first
came here over four years ago.
It doesn’t seem to matter what age or gender people are
that come here; if they’re involved in agribusiness of any sort, Bahia seems to
get their adrenaline pumping.
We as a company (Global Ag Investments) looked at the opportunities for
expansion and what direction we wanted to head. Our strategy from day one had
been pretty straightforward. We want to rent ground on long-term contracts, keep
our costs low and lock in profits by staying disciplined with our marketing
plan.
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By doing this we’ve created a vehicle that is efficient and
profitable. We’ve decided to expand our operations here by several thousand
additional acres in the coming year. The adjoining property to our farm that
lies basically in one tract (4,700 hectares, or 11,609 acres) has become
available to rent on contract for the next 5 years, as well as a couple of other
farms nearby that would total about another additional 4,000 hectares (9,880
acres).
It’s a lot of ground to pick up in one year, but we’re continuing
to build our management team in Brazil by adding more U.S. farm managers with
agronomy degrees. By expanding our management we feel confident as we continue
to take on more acres.
It seems like in farming you either get busy growing or get busy dying, because
it seems there is no in between.
Published in Corn and Soybean Digest.
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