By Mike Danna
Louisiana Farm Bureau Federation Public Relations Director

On behalf of Jim Monroe I want to say thanks again for allowing us to travel with Class XI and experience Brazil with each of you. Personally, I thought it was a great trip, one we’ll remember always. I want to thank Dr. Soileau for his patience and guidance during our 12 days in Brazil. He knows his job and we’re all better people for it. It takes a lot to coordinate a trip like ours. The man took care of business and still found the time to interact with each of us, making sure we were OK and offering assistance. That’s class, pure and simple.

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By Mike Danna
Louisiana Farm Bureau Federation Public Relations Director

Next to good old-fashioned $2 a bottle water, coffee has to be one of the most consumed beverages in the world. More than 50 percent of the coffee beans grown on the planet come from Brazil. Take that Juan Valdez, and the burro you rode in on.

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By Mike Danna
Louisiana Farm Bureau Federation Public Relations Director

Monday we heard a presentation on Brazilian ethanol production from professors at the University of Sao Paulo’s College of Agriculture and private industry sector execs. One of those presentations was by officials from Cosan, a sugar and ethanol cooperative that has vertically integrated the manufacturing process to include growing, harvesting and processing of sugarcane-based ethanol.

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By Mike Danna
Louisiana Farm Bureau Federation Public Relations Director

Greetings and happy Sunday from Rio. For those of you who have traveled abroad, you know things are different when you leave the states. As American’s we’re used to taking things for granted, like hot water, safe food, people who speak our language and, most importantly, high speed internet service.

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By Mike Danna
Louisiana Farm Bureau Federation Public Relations Director

Classes 9 and 10 stood on the Great Wall of China. Previous classes have trekked across Vietnam, Europe and South America. Saturday we visited the Christ the Redeemer Statue, atop Corcovada Mountain in Rio. The statue is considered by the Brazilians to be one of the Seven Wonders of the World. And while that might be open to interpretation, the statue is nothing short of spectacular.

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By Mike Danna
Louisiana Farm Bureau Federation Public Relations Director

At the half way point in our trip we’re all beginning to feel the affects of long days and short nights. But that’s what these trips are always like; “run and gun” as we say in the farm TV news business. Saturday will be a bit of welcomed R&R. We’ll visit the Christ the Redeemer Statue, a towering sculpture that rises 100 feet atop the Corcovado Mountain. We’ll get there by tram.

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By Mike Danna
Louisiana Farm Bureau Federation Public Relations Director

This tour of Brazil marks my forth time traveling abroad with members of the LSU AgLeadership Development Program. Jim Monroe, who’s been shooting many of the photos and helping to produce the Brazilian edition of “This Week in Louisiana Agriculture,” has made three such trips.

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By Mike Danna
Louisiana Farm Bureau Federation Public Relations Director

Every adventure has a story. Our story started today. Here’s a little quiz. What do you get when you cross a bored bus driver with three hours to kill and a group of American farmers touring a cattle farm? A drunken bus driver, that’s what. Oh, and those same American farmers sitting at a Brazilian Federal Police checkpoint for an hour and a half.

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By Mike Danna
Louisiana Farm Bureau Federation Public Relations Director

Up until 1997 there wasn’t a single boll of cotton grown in the state of Mato Grosso. No cotton meant no infrastructure, no gins and no growers. That was 13 years ago. Today the region grows more than 925,000 acres of cotton supported by hundreds of producers and features 121 state-of-the-art cotton gins. It’s all thanks to a grower cooperative known as AMPA and the Instituto Mato Grossense Do Algodao, or IMA.

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By Mike Danna
Louisiana Farm Bureau Federation Public Relations Director

Greetings from Campo Verde, in the western Mato Grosso region of Brazil near the Bolivian border. First things first. After 40 grueling hours that involved weather delays, four flights from four jumping off points and plenty of memorable commentary from Errol Domingues, members of the LSU AgLeadership Development Class XI arrived in Brazil. Touchdown in Sao Paulo was 5:30 a.m. Central Standard Time, or 9:30 a.m. here in Brazil after a nine-hour, 35-minute flight.

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By Mike Danna
Louisiana Farm Bureau Federation Public Relations Director

Like your leadership classes, this trip will be an adventure. It’s going to be hectic at times, but enjoyable and rewarding as well. For those of you traveling out of the country for the first time, you’ll get your “sea legs” and have many tales to tell for many years to come.

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By Mike Danna
Louisiana Farm Bureau Federation Public Relations Director

Brazil is big. That’s good from an agricultural standpoint. The more land you have the more you things you can produce. No doubt you’ve heard the stories of how Brazil has reduced its dependence on oil by fueling its cars and trucks with ethanol. In fact, Brazil is the world’s second largest producer of ethanol and the world’s largest exporter. Together, Brazil and the United States lead the world in the industrial production of ethanol, accounting for 89 percent of total global production in 2008.

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