Brazil’s 2019-20 grain and oilseed crops are poised to reach record production of 245.8mn metric tons (t), boosted by an increase in acreage and a recovery in the soybean crop, which will also likely break a record.
The number would mark an increase of 1.6pc from the last cycle. The total area planted is also expected to reach a record of nearly 64mn hectares (158mn acres), up 1.1pc from last year’s season, the country’s agricultural statistics agency (Conab) said today in its first report on the new season.
Farmers have already started planting soybean and corn in some southern and west-central areas of the country. Both commodities – including the winter corn crop, sowed after the soybean harvest – account for 90pc of all Brazil’s grain and oilseed crops. Other crops included in the total are sunflower, barley and peanuts, among others.
Facts? Who needs facts when global mobs of teenagers are having hairy canaries about the Apocalypse, and jostling for the attention of news cameras. Media run on horror shows and doomsday scenarios, not on facts.
Doomsayers and media shills still have to eat, move about, and live under shelters, but they take all that for granted. They need to devote their imaginations to the fact-free horror show.
I had a chat with a socially acceptable, right thinking, liberal. I pointed out that, to get rid of human CO2 emissions by 2050, we would have to build one nuclear plant per day from now until then. He had blind faith that somehow technology would come along and rescue us. That’s true as long as you count fracking.
We haven’t had a fundamental physics discovery in a while and drug research is suffering from Eroom’s Law. Relying on a scientific breakthrough is just stupid. Breakthroughs will happen but they are completely unpredictable. Betting the farm on a breakthrough that makes renewable energy feasible is suicidal.
Eroom’s law ignores that the pharmaceutical industry stopped actually employing the medicinal chemists who formerly drove the innovation of the industry. The industry sold it’s soul to the marketers, who drove profits through me-too drugs, the genome-beaters, and the modelers/combinatorial chemists who claimed to have discovered a technological “secret-sauce”. Where else do we see such similar claims, huh?
Genuine pharmaceutical innovation still comes from people educated in medicinal chemistry who can recognize serendipity when it comes knocking loudly at your door.
It’s astounding how few medical discoveries are made by bricklayers.
The breakthrough already happened in 1996. 2 decades of science since then to ensure it really works.
A multi-billion dollar first year rollout is in progress (June 2019 kick-off).
I’m talking about using crops to feed arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF). AMF makes copious amounts of glomalin related soil proteins (GRSP). GRSP are both extremely durable and extremely sticky. GRSP is a soil glue that is the core need for soil health increase / soil organic matter (SOM) buildup.
Indigo Ag (a company selling farmers billions of dollars a year of seeds with microorganism and AMF spores embedded in a nutrient coating) launched their Terraton Initiative in June. Expected payout to farmers in excess of $1.5B in the first year.
If they succeed at getting farmers globally to sequester 1 trillion tonnes of CO2 equivalent carbon, they will turn the climate conversation on its head.
https://www.indigoag.com/terraton
Your go Brazil…
Just imagine how many Brazilians that could feed had it not been going into Ethanol production
From: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18536250
“Abstract
Several geopolitical factors, aggravated by worries of global warming, have been fueling the search for and production of renewable energy worldwide for the past few years. Such demand for renewable energy is likely to benefit the sugarcane ethanol industry in Brazil, not only because sugarcane ethanol has a positive energetic balance and relatively low production costs, but also because Brazilian ethanol has been successfully produced and used as biofuel in the country since the 1970s. However, environmental and social impacts associated with ethanol production in Brazil can become important obstacles to sustainable biofuel production worldwide. Atmospheric pollution from burning of sugarcane for harvesting, degradation of soils and aquatic systems, and the exploitation of cane cutters are among the issues that deserve immediate attention from the Brazilian government and international societies. “…etc., etc, etc……
Notes and errata: Searches related to brazil sugarcane sustainable ethanol
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I just saw the announcement that 10 million acres were enrolled for this first year of the Terraton Initiative.
https://www.indigoag.com/pages/news/farmers-step-forward-more-than-10-million-acres?hs_amp=true&__twitter_impression=true
That’s impressive!
I think this first year was US only. Hopefully they will add Brazil, India, and Australia soon
Yoy mean Australia will become a greater carbon sink? There just has to be a market somewhere. 😛
Lee,
The EU has its utilities by law purchasing 500 million tonnes of carbon credits this year to offset fossil fuel emissions. They are averaging about $40/tonne CO2e, so that’s about $20B for 2019.
Indigo Ag I’m sure is going through the process of getting authorized to sell their credits to EU utilities. For now they are selling them for $20/tonne and paying farmers $15/tonne. As I said 10 million acres of US cropland enrolled to participate this coming year.
Texas is surprisingly the US state with the most enrolled land:
https://twitter.com/Indigoag/status/1181946513053888513?s=19
Now all we have to do is get the Australian Parliament, as a whole, to understand our carbon sink state. Instead of toeing the IPCC line.
Oh, commieBob, clearly you’ve never een involved in any corporate innovation programs. “Blue Ocean” innovations can be created on demand by senior managers who simply appoint the correct committees. Innovations come like clockwork once the right team is in place.
One of the areas which is suffering in the American economy is corporate management. Henry Mintzberg has, time after time, demonstrated that MBAs are particularly over confident and ineffective as managers. link
It seems that in corporate America, BS is more highly rewarded than actual performance.
Greta was overhead saying to a group of (political) Scientists – “This is horrible, just horrible.” Good news/bad news all the same to someone without dreams and a future.
Oh no, global warming! Sorry, I Mean climate change is true, look at all the crops world wide, even british wine makers are seeing brilliant grape crops… We need to depopulate the world, and stop all fossil fuel use, before we have so much food that we will drown in it 😐 (sarc LOL)
The Gretins will regard this as proof we’re all going to die.
The Amazon rainforest is about 1.7 billion acres.
The total area planted is expected to reach a record 158 million acres.
I’m not seeing a total destruction of the ecosystem. Don’t get me wrong. There’s a lot of disruption going on and it only takes a few roads and lumber operations to cause lasting harm but scale needs to be kept in perspective.
All good points. On the water however, the ag runoff is causing a fertility bloom that has buried the Caribbean waters in Sargassum weed. The putrefying piles on beaches have created an eco-mess everywhere. We have not been able to fish in the last two years due to the enormous vegetation mats covering acres and several feet thick. Adjacent mats leave very little open water. This fertility has been linked directly to the Brazil source.
Sadly there are not entrepreneurs in the Caribbean willing to make use of this abundant resource. After all dried seaweed makes an excellent fertilizer, many culinary thickeners are made from seaweed, etc., etc.
Or maybe there are some entrepreneurs …
t)m,
If you look at the NPK chemical content of kelp, you cannot describe it as an excellent fertilizer. It has about as much nutrition as a pile of used plastic bags. That is not to say that slick people cannot make a big quid from it.
This seaweed/kelp thing is yet another example of the power of advertising, to make you believe 10 impossible things before breakfast.
Like the anti-oxidant in food scam, thankfully now heading for oblivion. Geoff S.
The Caribbean is hundreds of miles away from the closest point in the Caribbean.
RD,
Do you have a conditioned response to bash forestry whenever you read of it? If you had worked in the industry, you might be more appreciative. Geoff S
Good timing for Brazil…just when American and Canadian crops are either planted late or froze/snowed under early on some of the prairie. And also when China is looking for additional markets for oil seeds and grains, wanting to punish Canada and the USA for either the trade war or in Canada’s case, China’s recent hostility for an arrest of a Chinese national who was the daughter of Huawei founder with close ties to the military. Good for Brazil, since they need all the success they can muster for their people.
A liberal’s view on energy is skewed by the PC/smart phone revolution. They think that because you did it there it must feaseable for renewables. The problem is that wind and solar are limited by the energy input by the sun. There is a lot of it but very dilute and inconsistent-eg sunset.
All of the classical and non classical laws of physics were laid in the early 20th century.
That’s why photosynthesis will be the primary tool of drawing down CO2. The energy is free. And using it to pull-down CO2 doesn’t violate any conservation of energy rules.
Good news for the world. US corn and soy production have taken a real hit this year with the delayed start to growing season and its early end due to early frost and snow hitting the Midwest.
https://twitter.com/ndrockfarmer/status/1183029585383964679
However, Brazil is experiencing delayed planting of soybeans, I assume due to unseasonal cold.
https://twitter.com/hedgeit/status/1182702300697153537
Good ole Electroverse. Quality resource.
Weekend Freeze to Decimate Grain Harvests: “Substantial Production Cuts” on the cards
https://electroverse.net/weekend-freeze-to-decimate-grain-harvests/
Icisil
First time ive read a report, and climate change wasn’t to blame. The report stated this…..
“The cold times are returning, in line with historically low solar activity”
Well solar activity is currently low and is forecast by NASA to get even lower, and colder weather is associated with periods of low solar activity, so we’ll see what happens. Believers in AGW seem to think that CO2 will keep that from happening, but like I said, we’ll see what happens.
Consecutive record soybean harvests were set in 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018. 2019 harvest is forecasted to be below 2014-2018 levels but still higher than in 2013. In fact higher than any year from 2006 to 2018.
Corn harvest is predicted to be higher than any year from 2006 to 2013 but below the record years of 2014 to 2018.
While 2019 totals may be down, they are down from prior record harvests. I don’t think the US needs to worry about its corn and soybean harvests.
I’ve been reading discrepancies between what the USDA forecasts and what farmers themselves are thinking. We’ll see what happens. Won’t be long now.
Despite a poor crop year in some parts of the USA (many areas are/were fine), I get the impression the world is not doomed in 2020.
Maybe there will be an asteroid impact to hurry things up.
At least we will all be well-fed when the apocalypse comes, and I hope the ferment a lot of that corn.
As a Brazilian proud of the current Administration, I can assure you that the country has, for quite some time now, been the world’s most important and diverse agricultural powerhouse together with the US – no one else comes close. As for the Amazon, it is doing fine, thank you – and virtually NONE of the crops referred to above has any negative impact on the native forests of the country, which already boasts one of the largest percentages of protected areas in the whole world.
This story has to be false. After all, climate expert Bill Nye the Science Guy said it soon will be too hot to grow corn in the US, all food production must be moved to Canada, and they don’t have enough solar trains to get it down here, so we Americans are all gonna die!
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/01/31/bill-nyes-latest-climate-warning-the-us-will-have-to-grow-its-food-in-canada/
But now we see bumper crops coming from the Equator! Where it’s really hot! That cannot be! My head is exploding! Didn’t corn and beans originate in boreal tundra regions? How can they possibly grow in the hottest place on Earth?
The Equator is not “really hot” or “hottest place” compared to many places.
However, most readers at WUWT know this, so you will get a pass.
The major corn growing areas are more than 700 miles south of the Equator,
where it is likely hotter. (I’ll not check, but you may if you wish.)
Of all the places in the ranged empire of Rome, it was North Africa that was the ‘granary of Rome’.
is it safe to come out of my cave where I’ve been for 52 years since I read this.
You just cannot beat that extra Carbon Dioxide to boost your plant growth and reduce need for water. It comes too, just in time to offset disaster as a grand solar minimum triggers rather nasty cold weather impeding plants.
Extra CO2 will do that for plants. Onward to 500 PPM!!!!
To 600ppm and beyond!
I’d love to see CO2 levels break 1000ppm, but I don’t believe there is enough fossil fuels in the ground to do that.
They are also in a historic drought. Just weather but they do seem to occur at solar minimum. Just because you plant it and project a yield doesn’t mean you will get it.
David
Icisil posted a link a few posts up, its the wekend freeze post and it states that its due to historicalt low solar activity. I’m new to solar cycles and activity, but does the sun have that great a effect on earths weather?
In any given year no. However there are records of drought and flood in various places during the Maximum and Minimums in the solar cycle. However like all other weather it is not carved in stone just your odds are better you will get a particular weather pattern. Joe Bastardi looks at historical weather and where the ENSO PDO AMO and solar cycles were and extrapolates a forcast from that. History never repeats but it does sometimes rhyme.
As a side note my grandfather farmed his whole life in North Central Texas. He said from 1890 to about the late 1920s you could grow corn there reliably. From the 1930s to the early 1960s you could not. Then from the 1960s to the early 1980s you could. Weak solar cycles the AMO and PDO, who knows?
With thanks to EM Smith at https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2019/10/09/effect-of-early-winter-on-crops/
The US is heading for a heap of trouble with corn and soya stocks, sure US has a trade contract with Brazil but that will not stop many farmers going bust.
https://youtu.be/o-I6TijV8ko
I think we should cut down the entire amazon- that way we’d have more soy.