Lessons from Brazil’s ‘empire of soybeans’
Editorial
Guyana Chronicle
March 1, 2004
LUCAS do Rio Verde arose from the dust 25 years ago when the government dispatched legions of farmers from the overcrowded south to the empty western outback. The settlers hacked down the scrubby forests, or ‘cerrado’, only to find weak and acidic soil. The heat was hellish, and the rains came in deluges. Malaria was rampant. One by one the farmers failed, some swapping their lots for nothing but a bus ride back home. But the few who hung on eventually prospered - and turned this drowsy village into an agricultural boomtown. Now an empire of soybeans stretches from horizon to horizon. It’s more than a handsome vista. Here, in the ‘cerrado’ of Mato Grosso, and radiating out through the Brazilian backlands, the frontier is dotted with hulking silos, computerised harvesters and plantations the size of townships. With the help of clever agronomists, modern technology and the callused hands of pioneers in scores of towns like Lucas, Brazil has become the world’s newest agricultural superpower. Last year, while the national economy struggled, Brazilian farmers reaped another bountiful harvest of commodity crops. Grain production for example, topped 123 million tons - double the figure of a decade ago. While Brazil’s overall jobless rate spiked to 8 per cent last year, rural employment grew by 6.4 per cent, and 10 per cent in the frontier states of Mato Grosso, Tocantins and Goias.
-- Brazil’s Growing Power, NEWSWEEK, February 23, 2004.
“The country is planting its once arid frontier and fast becoming an agribusiness titan,” notes the blurb of the NEWSWEEK cover story authored by Mac Margolis. And the profound import of this cryptic line has the power to give pause to all economic planners and agents of development, who for decades have been advocating a more aggressive investment policy to transform Guyana’s agricultural potential into realms of prosperity for the benefit of the entire nation. Any reader of last week’s NEWSWEEK magazine could be forgiven for feeling a tiny pang of envy for the wonderful agricultural success of Guyana’s southern neighbour - Brazil. For one thing, both Brazil and Guyana share the characteristics of the Amazonian basin. Some aspects of the conditions experienced by early settlers of Lucas do Rio Verde - scrubby forests, weak and acidic soil, extreme heat, torrential rainfall and malaria - are identical to conditions encountered by local and re-migrant Guyanese homesteaders of the Soesdyke-Linden Highway approximately 25 years ago. Many of those homesteaders, who began cultivating cash crops at Yarowkabra, Kuru Kururu, Silver Hill and Long Creek discovered to their chagrin, that if they removed too much of the top-soil, their farmlands would soon become miniature deserts. However, by applying specific inputs and precise agricultural techniques, the farmers of the Soesdyke-Linden Highway communities were soon harvesting hills of pumpkins, watermelons, pineapples, papayas, peppers and corn among other produce. The sad reality for those highway farmers, who did not possess the means to transport their produce to markets in Georgetown or elsewhere, was that the literal fruits of their labour were too often left to rot because buyers of the then government marketing agency did not always show up to purchase their produce. Almost as frustratingly futile was the situation of marketing agents paying farmers for the piles of fruit and vegetables, but refraining (for one reason or another) from transporting the produce away from the farms. The fact that thousands of poor low-income or unemployed persons in the Capital could have utilised these hillocks of pumpkins and pineapples and corn made the waste and spoilage more heartbreaking than ever.
Today, there are several local and foreign manufacturers, who are adding value to Guyanese produce before exporting items to the Caribbean, North America and Europe. There are also small exporters, who are becoming increasingly proficient in selecting, packing and shipping best quality items of breadfruit, plantains, pineapples, mangoes and other agricultural produce for specific destinations in the Caribbean and further afield. Yet, the combined efforts of exporters and manufacturers exploit only a fraction of the huge agricultural potential of this country. Hopefully, in time, this nation will be able to benefit from Brazil’s experience and produce its own ‘empire of soybeans’ through enlightened agricultural techniques.