Ag News: MaPiToBa

1 Jan

Technology expands production of agricultural frontier

Matopiba Region, which includes border area of Maranhao, Tocantins, Piauí and Bahia, will benefit from investments in infrastructure and research.

The projections of the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply (MAPA) show that Brazil is a major supplier of food. The region of Matopiba, an area including the states of Maranhão, Tocantins, Piauí and Bahia, has potential for growth of grain production and will stand out in the Brazilian agricultural landscape for years to come. The trend shown in the study "Brazil - Projections of Agribusiness 2010/2011 to 2020/2021", released by the MAPA, in partnership with the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa).

"Technology has been a factor in this new area of expansion of the agricultural frontier, with substantial investments in land, equipment and human capital," says the General Coordinator of Strategic Planning of the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply, Jose Garcia Gasques. The coordinator adds that the benefits of these new areas are economic growth and income generation.

The productivity of soybeans, cotton, coffee and corn in this region is high and is favored by research conducted by Embrapa. Areas that have been settled have features essential for modern agriculture. Are flat and extensive, productive soils, water availability and climate, with long days and intensity of sunlight. Gasques notes that the major limitations are the precarious logistics, especially in land transport, ports, communication, and in some regions, lack of financial services.

Among the four states, Bahia is the most significant agricultural producer. The coordinator cites, for example, the three municipalities in Bahia with high soybean production: Formosa do Rio Preto, São Desiderio and Luis Eduardo Magalhaes. According Gasques, the development of Matopiba be confirmed in the coming years with investments in infrastructure, research and policy measures.
Source: Map

17 Dec

MaToPiBa - the Frontier agricultural region has GDP growth rates higher than the national average

The consolidation of agricultural activities in Brazil's Ag Frontier begins to leave footprints. The most recent GDP figures indicate that the average evolution of several agricultural towns in the region far exceeds the national average, according to Jose Garcia Gasques, General Coordinator of Strategic Planning of the Ministry of Agriculture.

While traditional farming towns in states such as Paraná have average growth, the agricultural Frontier Region's GDP growth is 30% higher than the national average, says Gasques. This is what happened in Uruçuí in Piauí, where the GDP from 2000 to 2009 had average annual growth of 35.5%.

"The agricultural expansion creates demand for new services, pushing the performance of the entire region and raising incomes", says Gasques.

source: Notícias Agricolas

Piauí consolidates third place in grains in the Northeast

15 Sept 11

Piaui consolidated its position as the third largest grain producer in the Northeast, behind the states of Bahia and Maranhão. This year's harvest was 2,262,300 tons of grain, of which 1,144,300 was soybeans. According to figures provided by the National Supply Company (Conab), responsible for the monthly survey grain harvest in Brazil, Bahia produced 7,3 million tons and Maranhão 3.3 million.  After Piauí came the states of Ceará, Sergipe and Pernambuco.

Piauí also maintains the 3rd position in the planted area. This year's grain crop in the state occupied an area of 1,146,200  hectares, compared with just over 3 million hectares in Bahia and Maranhão at 1,583,500. The growth area in Piauí, increased by 13.4%, Bahia and Maranhão areas grew by 5.4%, 9.1% respectively.

Productivity increased 44.1% in Piauí, Bahia 5.4% and Maranhão 23%. In Bahia, the average production per hectare reached 2,387 kilograms per hectare, Maranhão 2,088 pounds and Piauí, 1.974 million.

Maranhão, Tocantins, Piauí and Bahia corn and soybean yields increase, but little in planted area. Advancement is limited by lack of infrastructure.

The lack of infrastructure is hampering the expansion of grain production in the region formed by Maranhão, Tocantins, Piauí and Bahia (Matopiba) and leaving millions of acres of land economically inactive. The Expedition Safra Gazeta do Povo found that the expansion of areas of soybean and corn occurs in much slower rate than projected by the industry.

In four states, the project managers and journalists were faced with roads in poor condition, overloaded ferries, railways still under construction and ports not able to keep up with the increase in production.

In 2010/11, the fields were expanded by only 170,000 hectares. The region would need to plant an additional 650,000 hectares per year to reach 10 million hectares in a decade, according to projections released in 2008. The Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply (MAPA) estimated that 20 million hectares of farmland are available in the "new agricultural frontier".

Listed by farmers as the most urgent infrastructure project is the Maranhão Public Grain Terminal  (Tegram), which should be completed by 2013. The project, which still requires approval from the National Agency of Waterway Transportation (Antaq), includes construction of four warehouses, each with a capacity of 125,000 tons, and a new structure for receipt and shipment within the Port of Itaqui in San Luis (MA). With just one silo for storage, the Port currently handles two million tons of grain per year, but is expected to reach 6 million this decade.

Each new Federal Government Administration sets new competition deadlines for infrastructure projects. The Transnordestina, which will have 1700 kilometers running between Eliseu Martins (PI) and the ports of Suape (PE) and Pecem (CE), is under construction  and should be completed by 2013, as promised by President Rousseff.  The construction of the North-South is progresses in Tocantins, but those sections already completed are still little used for transporting the region's production of Pedro Afonso or Porto Nacional, for example. The paving of Transcerrado highway, which will pass through the soybean region of Piauí has been under study for more than a year.

The superintendent of the National Rural Education (Senar) in Maranhão, Antonio Luiz Figueiredo, considers the lack of grain terminals at the ports as the biggest problem for Matopiba. "Today, many truckers wait up to three days to unload at the port because of the lack of storage," he complains. With the completion of Centro-Oeste railroads, the Central-Western states that now use the ports of Santos (SP) and Paranaguá (PR) will be able to use the northern and northeast ports.

The infrastructure largely determines the expansion of agricultural production. The historical series of data from the National Supply Company (Conab) shows that during the last decade, the Paraná - which has more better infrastructure than Matopiba - expanded crop areas in 1.17 million hectares (20%), despite having leas areas available. In Maranhão, Tocantins, Piauí and Bahia, the increase was 1.4 million hectares in the period (55%), ie, only 240 000 hectares more than in the fields of Paraná, where the pastures need to be turned under to make room the grains.

Source: Gazeta do Povo

All States

Maranhão  (MA)

Piauí (PI)

Tocantins (TO)

Bahia (BA)