 "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] |
