 "There is a 34 percent undercapacity of soybean storage, and the
situation is aggravated by the rapidly increasing production of
second-crop maize," said University of Illinois agricultural
economist Peter Goldsmith. "The worst situation occurs in northern
Mato Grosso with a simulation of a full maize second crop. The
potential to succession crop is great, and current levels of storage
are low. There is clear evidence of a shortage of storage,
particularly private and cooperative, as grain production rises in
the state," he said.Goldsmith conducted the research project,
which was the first to employ geographic information system software
to map the coordinates of commercial, cooperative and private grain
storage facilities in Mato Grosso.
"We created GIS coordinates for every facility, mapped them and
then overlaid how much the production there currently is and how
much production there would be if farmers were to produce and store
a second corn crop on 100 percent of the bean crop, in order to find
the areas that had the most congestion and the least congestion,"
Goldsmith said.
The study focused on commercial warehouses with capacity greater
than 50,000 metric tons, mapping the state's 2,143 registered
warehouses.
"One region in the northern part of the state is about 6.9
million metric tons under capacity," Goldsmith said. "That's 270
million bushels. If a typical grain bin holds about 50,000 bushels,
that's equivalent to 5,420 50,000-bushel grain bins. The area south
of that in Lucas is 5 million metric tons under capacity. Of course,
the actual undercapacity situation may be less because it assumes
double crop production on every acre. It would be highly unlikely
that every acre would be farmed for soybean, maize and a safrinha,
or 'little crop.' Alternatively, though, maize yields are less than
half that commonly found in the midwestern United States, so there
is a significant upside to the size of the maize crop."
Goldsmith said the information will help determine the best, most
convenient locations for additional storage.
"The state of Mato Grosso, where I've been working for the past
dozen years, is the largest state producing soybeans in the world,"
Goldsmith said. "It produces 38 percent of Brazil's soybeans and an
increasingly greater percentage of corn. It's also the number one
state in Brazil for rice, cattle and cotton. Over my years of
involvement, I have seen it change from being an emergent
agro-industrial complex state to a state that is now a global
leader."
Goldsmith said the project was funded by the Archer Daniels
Midland Institute for the Prevention of Postharvest Loss at the
University of Illinois, which researches many different aspects of
postharvest loss in developing countries, in addition to storage.
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"Losses occur in three areas -- grain that's left standing in the
field after a harvest, during the short haul when grain falls off of
the truck in transportation from the field to either storage or
commercial sale, and loss of private storage," he said. "Short-haul
loss is fairly trivial in the United States, but it is significant
in developing countries where there is no infrastructure, no paved
roads. And the roads that are paved are full of potholes and in very
poor condition. Commercial trucks used for hauling grain are not in
the best shape, so there's a 3 percent loss of grain that falls off
the truck."
The nature of nonstop, year-round farming in the tropics
contributes to the loss.
"Farmers have to harvest soybeans during the rainy season because
if they wait until the end of the rainy season to plant corn, the
corn won't get pollinated due to the onset of the dry season," he
said. "There are also significant quality and direct gain-loss
issues due to harvesting at very high moisture levels. And the
urgency brought on by the seasonal timing makes harvesting go very
fast. Speed is important because you've got to get the beans out to
get the corn in. A farmer might sacrifice soybeans to get the corn
planted. And the equipment is in constant demand and kept far from
the farmstead, so the combines and trucks don't get maintained
properly."
Goldsmith said that tropical regions of the globe will be
producing more and more of the world's food, so helping farmers in
developing countries such as Brazil to create more efficient
harvesting, transporting and storage is a step toward ensuring that
there will be enough grain to feed and fuel the world.
"This is where the available ground is located," Goldsmith said.
"It's been difficult to know how to farm it in the past. The low
organic matter and highly acidic soils that are under significant
pest pressure make it a difficult area to produce crops, but the
Brazilians figured out how to do it and do it very well.
"They are part of the global market at the frontier of
agricultural production systems," he said. "Places like Mato Grosso
are at the margin where the food gap can be closed. In most
temperate regions of the world, grain productivity is already high,
so increasing output to meet rising demand is more incremental. The
big changes are happening in the low-latitude regions of South
America and Africa. As a scientifically relevant university, we need
to understand the tremendous changes underway in the global
agribusiness scene, which currently happens to be in western Brazil.
"Mapping private, commercial and cooperative storage in Mato
Grosso" was co-authored by Joćo Antonio Vilela Medeiros and
published in Portuguese in a 2013 issue of The Soybean Research
Journal.
[Text from file received from the
University of Illinois College of Agricultural, Consumer and
Environmental Sciences] |
