By Lise Alves, Senior Contributing Reporter
SÃO PAULO, BRAZIL – Brazil’s National Supply Company (CONAB) released a grain production estimate on Tuesday, May 12th, showing that the production of grains in Brazil for the 2014/2015 season should be of approximately 202.23 million tons, 4.4 percent higher than what the country registered in the 2013/2014 season. The increase, expected to be approximately of 1.54 million tons from the previous season, should come from corn, soybean and wheat.
If this production is reached it will be a record grain production for Brazil. “We are registering twenty years of harvest growths. This shows an effort by the federal government; the importance the government has given to financing crops with the agricultural plans developed by the sector,” said CONAB President, Rubens Rodrigues dos Santos, during the announcement of the survey report.
The entity’s eighth production estimate for the 2014/2015 season also showed that the area planted should be 0.3 percent greater than that registered in the 2013/2014 season, going from 57.06 to 57.21 million hectares. Soybean should be the crop with the greatest gains in planted area.
According to Brazil’s Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply, the Northeastern region of Brazil, which includes the states of Maranhão, Tocantins, Piaui and Bahia, is the area that expanded its agricultural production the most.
According to the Ministry, favorable international prices, especially of soybean, as well as the foreign exchange rate, which make the Brazilian production more competitive internationally, have led producers to invest more in grain commodities, which may be sold abroad.
In line with the CONAB results, the Brazilian Statistics Bureau IBGE (Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatistica) released its national cereal, grain and oil seed estimates for the 2014/2015 season which called for a total production of 201 million tons.