Big Country, Big Farming
By Mike Danna
Louisiana Farm Bureau Federation Public Relations Director
If you want to see row crop agriculture on a massive scale you have to come to a place that has massive land resources.
Welcome to the Mato Grosso State in Brazil’s western region. The state (that’s what these areas are called here) is the size of Texas and California, yet has just 2.5 million people. No subdivisions and no major urban areas mean lots of farmland in production. The Maraba Farm we visited Tuesday has more than 67,000 acres in row crops, including corn, soybeans, cotton and dry edible beans. The farm also works 10,000 head of cattle.
The farm is a model example of vertical integration. The farm has its own cotton gin, manufactures its own crops chemicals and even has its own crop inspectors.
Our guide, Chris Ward, a big New Zealander who’s been around the world running farming operations, says Maraba is just one of many such farming operations here in the Mato Grosso.
Ward said the Mato Grosso has only been in ag production since the early 1980s. Today the region leads the country in grain production. It’s also set the tone for how Brazilian farmers have told the government to essentially take a hike.
“The government didn’t have the money to enforce its mountain of paperwork regulations,” Ward said. “So the farmers told them they would regulate themselves.”
Today Maraba and other cotton farms in the area inspect, grade and certify their own cotton. They manufacture their own crop protection products, while hiring retired agronomists, crop consultants and researchers to develop and implement new crop production methods. “They’re a wealth of knowledge and we pay better than the government,” Ward continues. “We also give them a slice of the pie. Some receive royalties and a percentage of the profits.”
Think how productive Louisiana farmers could be if they didn’t have such bureaucratic headaches to deal with. How did Brazilian farmers get the upper hand? First they formed cooperatives where the driving force was not profit, but rather potential; potential for agricultural expansion while not forgetting that it takes community involvement for a community to be successful.
In essence, Ward says, the farmers simply promised to do the right thing and then went out and did it. Today it’s the farm cooperatives that fund road improvements, school systems, hospitals, community centers and other infrastructure needs in the Mata Grosso, not the Brazilian government.
“We let the market dictate our programs,” he said. “If we don’t deliver a quality product, don’t give back to those workers who help us, we won’t be around too long. Governments with money can perpetuate their own inefficiencies. We don’t have that here.”
Ward says farmers are the same the world over when it comes to their relationship with their governments. “We’re all just trying to farm and the government is always trying to screw us.”
Right.
Tractor Pullin’, Brazilian Style
A heavy rainstorm kept us from getting into the fields at the Maraba Farm. It rained about two inches in about 20 minutes and made the roads around the farm extremely muddy; so muddy in fact that the bus got stuck. I mean really stuck. (Check out the photo of the back wheels.)
There was a moment there we thought the bus might tip over. But the best thing about getting stuck on a farm is there are always plenty of tractors to pull you out. Some 45 minutes later we were out of the mud hole and back on the road.
Our next stop was the Cooperfibra Cotton and Grain Co. The company is very vertically integrated, with its own grain elevator nearby. But unlike other such operations in the states, the dryers are fired with wood. There are large furnaces that workers spend all day loading wood into. There’s a 100-yard-long woodpile with thousands of cords of wood. A front-end loader carries the wood from the pile to the furnaces, where men unload it and throw it in.
It’s a strange sight when you consider Brazil has eliminated its need for fossil fuels by powering cars with ethanol, but the ag facilities are powered the old fashioned way. With fire.
A word on the videos. I can’t see them here, but I can see that some of you have viewed them. Leave me a post letting me know if you can view them properly.
Until next time…