

Brazil's agricultural miracle  - cwan
http://www.economist.com/node/16889019

======
pragmatic
Some points (from a "farmer")

\- Brazil is a third world country.

\- labor is dirt cheap

\- on visits to Brazil, the level of human labor in agriculture is stunning.
(Not possible in US at current wages). Compare Japanese automated factories to
Chinese factories.

\- subsidies (perhaps) not needed because some inputs (labor) is so cheap

\- This is fantastic for Brazil.

I can't defend subsidies, and I don't know very many who can. However, it's
part of the game now in the US, so you'd be a fool not to take advantage of
them.

\- corn prices (adjusted for inflation) are _half_ of what they were in the
70's
([http://inflationdata.com/inflation/inflation_Articles/Corn_I...](http://inflationdata.com/inflation/inflation_Articles/Corn_Inflation.asp)),
while oil (a huge input to agriculture) is 3x as expensive
([http://inflationdata.com/inflation/inflation_rate/historical...](http://inflationdata.com/inflation/inflation_rate/historical_oil_prices_table.asp))

\- Dry land agriculture is going to explode.

\- drought resistance corn is going to increase the area of arable land in the
US. (The west is relatively dry, we have a lot of "less productive" range land
that could be used for agriculture. (Our land is right in that margin, all
land is currently in soybeans and it is no-till.) Previous years (80's/90's)
it was a mix of corn, oats, barley, sunflowers, wheat, sorghum, flax and some
soybeans. \- The last few years have seen record harvests. A combination of
good weather and excellent crop varieties is probably the cause.

\- Ag Input prices have soared recently.

\- Improvements in chemicals have made no-till a viable option.

\- The main problem is weed control. Canada Thistle, etc, roundup ready crops
are an amazing feat of engineering.

On being green.

\- Our farm hasn't seen so much wildlife since the 70's/80's.

\- Verdant fields support way more wildlife than native prairie. However,
there is still plenty of land that for other reasons, terrain, etc is used for
grazing, hay production.

\- We had our land in the conversation reserve program
(<http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/programs/crp/>) for quite some time. Now, crop
prices make that ridiculous.

\- Suburban chemical runoff is a faster growing problem then farm runoff.
Chemicals are extremely expensive, so with new high tech methods, each part of
the field gets the precise amount of chemical needed. Contrast this to
urban/suburban runoff:
[http://www.chesapeakebay.net/landuse_urbansuburban.aspx?menu...](http://www.chesapeakebay.net/landuse_urbansuburban.aspx?menuitem=19557)
"Unlike many farmers using nutrient management plans, _suburban residents
often over-apply fertilizer to their lawns and gardens_."

~~~
yequalsx
It's my impression that the genetically modified crops lack in taste. It's
true that we can end up producing more food per acre with them but it seems
that one price is on the taste. My anecdotal experience in Germany is that
organic food there tastes better than organic food in the U.S. and is much
better than the standard supermarket food in the U.S.

As a farmer, what are your thoughts on this? Also, I wonder if we are getting
into a chemical arms race with nature. Roundup resistant weeds now exist. Now
there is a new Roundup. Does the ecology suffer and us from this arms race?

~~~
sp332
GM crops only lack taste if they are designed with other goals in mind. For
example, the McGregor tomatoes are infamous for looking great, having a long
shelf life, and tasting like cardboard. I think it's possible to have a high-
yield crop that tastes good, if the market can convince the growers (who
convince the labs) that it's important.

~~~
yequalsx
Unfortunately in the U.S. looks matter more than taste. I guess it's the
wonders of advertising. Thanks for your answer.

------
forinti
You ain't seen nothing yet: Brazil is currently using only 16% of its arable
land. It has 65 million hectares in use of a total of 394 million
([http://www.viniart.com.br/lucioWhybrasil/whyBrasil.aspx?m=2&...](http://www.viniart.com.br/lucioWhybrasil/whyBrasil.aspx?m=2&p=5&v=0)).

Things started to get really interesting when Brazilian farmers stopped using
european methods, thanks to research at Embrapa (<http://www.embrapa.br/>).

~~~
eru
Yes. I have to find out how no-till agriculture works. (See e.g.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-till_farming>)

------
lars512
The following two sentences seemed a bit self-contradictory.

"They like agricultural research but loathe genetically modified (GM) plants."

"As the briefing explains, Brazil’s progress has been underpinned by the state
agricultural-research company and pushed forward by GM crops."

Does anyone know if GM crops did play an important role in their newfound
agricultural efficiency, or did they find major wins in other areas?

~~~
pchristensen
"They (they agro-pessimists) like agricultural research but loathe genetically
modified (GM) plants."

------
ars
A little light on details of what the miracle was.

~~~
muhfuhkuh
The link to the longer article is a little hidden, but it does go on to
explain it in alot more detail:

<http://www.economist.com/node/16886442>

Their share of the worlds agriculture is honestly staggering. To be #1 in OJ,
sugar, coffee, chickens, etc. is unbelievable.

------
neves
Don't forget that a large portion of Africa has the climate and soil of
Brazil. If we (Brazilians) export this technology to Africa it would: feed all
the humanity for years to come, reduce Africa poverty, and be a great source
of biofuel.

------
pragmatic
This is misleading: "It is not too much to talk about a miracle, and one that
has been achieved without the huge state subsidies that prop up farmers in
Europe and America. "

In the linked article: <http://www.economist.com/node/16886442> "According to
the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), _state
support accounted for 5.7% of total farm income_ in Brazil during 2005-07.
That compares with 12% in America,"

------
grammaton
"Of course there are myriad reasons why its way of farming will not translate
easily, notably that its success was achieved at a time when the climate was
relatively stable whereas now uncertainty looms."

This seems like a pretty big caveat to me, especially when you look at how
many civilizations have collapsed in the past due to exactly this very reason.

~~~
zppx
Caveat for what exactly? Technological transfer for Africa and Asia tropical
climates? Or for the Brazilian agricultural model?

For the second case I can give an opinion, Brazil is a country with a fair
amount of climate seasonal variations, where I live in São Paulo we have rainy
summers and dry winters, and in the 24 years that I lived there were a fair
amount of uncommon events in climate (including hot winters and dry summers),
and yet year after year as long I can remember the crop yield rose, both in
Brazil and in São Paulo.

I do not see how this can change in the short and mid-terms without a global
climate mess that would also affect other countries in the globe.

EDIT: As mkr-hn pointed I do not know the difference between weather and
climate, I think that the basic idea still stands.

~~~
mkr-hn
That's weather, not climate. Climate is something measured over centuries.

Climate is thousands of little weathers collected and analyzed.

------
pragmatic
Brazil doesn't have to subsidize their farmers, the US takes care of that:
[http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1978963,00.ht...](http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1978963,00.html)

Unbelievable.

------
CWuestefeld
There's a grammatical error, I think, that slightly changes the meaning of
part of the article.

 _Second, the Brazilian way of farming is more likely to do good in the
poorest countries of Africa and Asia._

I think that the writer actually means "do well" where he says it will "do
good". My correction says that there's a good chance that it will be
successful elsewhere -- which would _also_ imply his wording, that it would
deliver positive results in those regions.

~~~
maw
In the sentence, "good" is a noun. You can say "deliver ..." or "achieve
positive results", but why use the longer latinate words? It just makes you
look like you're trying to look smarter than you are.

~~~
CWuestefeld
No, these are not just different ways of skinning the same cat, the meaning is
quite different.

The word "good" is a noun, indicating _what_ will be done. The word "well" is
an adverb, and describes _how_ something will be done.

In a contrived example, a sentence like "the raping and pillaging invaders did
well" is grammatically and semantically correct (they achieved their goal by
getting lots of gold, etc.). A similar sentence "the raping and pillaging
invaders did good" is grammatically correct, but the semantics are probably
not what you want (they didn't do good, they did evil).

~~~
ramchip
I think you're technically right about the difference between the two, but I'm
quite sure the author did mean "do good"... more food would obviously be a
good thing for Africa.

