No-till on the Plains Brazil Farm Tour - March 2010

Wednesday, 03MAR 2010

• 06:45 Arrival at Sao Paulo Guarulhos,

• 13:00 Lunch at churrascaria „Riograndense“, next to the hotel

• 15:00 visit at FAMATO – Federation for Agriculture in Mato Grosso – Presentation about Agribusiness in Mato Grosso and Brazil with time for questions

• 19:00 Transfer by bus to dinner at „Confrade“, a very good bar and restaurant           Hotel in Cuiaba: Hotel Odara****

Snow in Atlanta??  Yes, and because it snowed in Atlanta, the flight from Atlanta to Brazil was cancelled so we were transferred from Delta to American Airlines - but the luggage for about half the people did not get the message and might be in Kansas City, Atlanta, Dallas, or Brazil - your guess is as good as Delta's or American Airlines at this point!  Anyway, we made it to Sao Paulo late and missed the 10:10 flight to Cuiaba so had to take a 1:30 flight to Brasilla and then to Cuiaba - so we finally made it about 5:30 and missed our meeting with the Ag Minister for FAMATO.

We did find our good friend Rolf Derpsch waiting for us.  Rolf is one of the world's leading experts on no-till and he will be with us for our entire tour - what a blessing and a privilege that will be. 

The people of Brazil are very warm and friendly and we are being treated better than we deserve.  We had a wonderful dinner at a local restaurant (see pics below).  The food was outstanding and if this is to be typical of the entire trip, we will all be in need of a diet upon our return!  We will begin touring tomorrow and will try to keep you informed as to what we are learning.

Thursday, 04MAR 2010

• 07:30 Departure by bus to Campo Verde (Green Field), stop for a visit at Chapada (65 km – 1,5 h)

• Visit of waterfalls and curious rock formations carved by nature. Here is the frontier of the waters, one going to Amazon, the other going to south

• 10:00 arrival at Campo Verde. Farm visit at Fazenda Maraba (30.000 ha) with No-Till soy plantation and Cotton Industry incl. introduction, visit at machine park, silos, laboratory for classification of cotton and visits at the fields.

• 19.00 Lunch at Pizzaria Michelle in Campo Verde        Hotel in Campo Verde: Pequeno Mundo***

Great day of touring today.  Fantastic breakfast at the hotel (breakfast is a big and important meal in Brazil). Left Cuiaba and headed east into the Cerrado (savanna) area.  Stopped a couple of time to take beautiful pictures in the Chapada park - this is sandstone rock formations that have been eroded down...  breathtaking views.   Met with leaders of the largest farmer cooperative in the area - they have a very interesting and productive arrangement that works very well for them - will have to explain more later.  Had a great lunch there (smoked meat kbobs).  Next went to a fazenda (farm) where soybeans corn and cotton are growing.  They are in various stages of soybean harvest, corn planting, and cotton growth.  In this region, they can grow 2 crops per year - usually it is soybeans-cotton, soybeans-corn, cover crop millet-cotton.  So they are getting 5 cash crops in 3 years.  This particular farm was not the greatest example of no-till as they were do some vertical tillage every other year to combat compaction.....   Rolf thinks they have more compaction in their head then they have in their soil!  Back to Campo Verde for dinner and early bed (for some).  Doug Clemens, our last member of the group, showed up today - he got delayed in Atlanta.  Of course he has no luggage so he fits in just fine with the other 5 people who are still waiting for their luggage to arrive - maybe the luggage didn't get a passport!   Anyway, we are having a great time as the following pictures will show.

A typical breakfast at a Brazilian hotel.  Breakfast is a very important meal here and all hotels will serve a large and complete one!	One of the rock formations - these appear to formed out of very soft sandstone which is quite prone to erosion.	Keith Berns with the Chapada park in the background.	More of the Chapada park - looking down over a replanted forest and some grazing area.  The soybean growing areas are all further up on the plateaus.
	Just one of the many fantastic meals we are being treated to.  Brazilian food is much more European than Latin - have not had a taco since being here!  Meat (beef) is the center piece of many meals.	A very large and very long chain with metal pieces welded on.  This chain would be hooked between two tractors that drive 100 ft apart and the resulting rolling, dragging chain will flatten cover crops so they can be planted into.  A similar chain type system is sometimes used when clearing these Cerrado forests so they can be farmed.	Doug Palen next to a windbreak of sunhemp, a tropical legume.

Friday, 05MAR 2010

• 08.00 transfer to one of the farms of the group BOM FUTURO, who owns 70 farms with total plantation area of 290.000 ha in Mato Grosso. 62% of planted area are soybeans. The other areas are panted with corn, cotton, rice and beans. The group owns in Campo Verde an experimental station with research, tests and development for use of new technologies. They work together with several named universities and suppliers

• Farm visits – mostly soy and cotton, ley farming, irrigated coffee               Hotel Odara****

Today we visited part of the BOM FUTURO farming group.  We were told that this is the largest soybean farmer in the world.  They farm nearly 700,000 acres in total.  The part of the farm we visited farmed about 100,000 acres.  We started at the farm's soybean storage facility.  This facility (one of several the groups owns) can hold about 3.6 million bu of grain with plans to add nearly 3 million bu of additional storage soon.  70-80% of their beans come in at 18% moisture (sometimes higher) because of almost daily rainfall.  These beans are cleaned and then dried down to 14% moisture.  Since there is no natural gas in this part of Brazil, all drying is done by burning wood.  This farm needs 7,000 cubic meters of wood per year to dry their crops - they can grow this on about 50 acres of ground per year.  Almost all of their grain must be shipped to a port which is a 2-3 day trip (one way).  Their trucks hold 1,700 - 1,800 bu of grain (triple axle trailers) and have no hoists or hopper bottoms.  The trucks drive onto a platform which will tip up 45 degrees to dump the truck.  This was a very impressive and well run facility that had 26 employees - this one farm storage facility is bigger than most of our co-op locations.

Next we went to the farming operation.  Their headquarters is a small town in itself with a large dining hall, soccer fields, church, school (through grade 4), various machine and repair shops as well as storage facilities.  Most all of the 160 employees live on site in small houses and a bus will take people the 30 miles to Campo Verde 2 times per week to visit their families (if they live there).  Workers work no more than 10 hours per day - even during harvest and planting and get a hour break for lunch.  The yard was full of  beautiful landscaping and many parrots populated the numerous trees.  A typical worker here might make $600 per week with a machine operator making up to $1,200 plus the have housing and meals provided as well.

We saw them planting edible beans as a safrina (second) crop.  5 different planters were planting in the same field.  We were once again disappointed in the quality of no-till we observed - very high disturbance openers and in fact they had done light tillage prior to planting in order to try to germinate volunteer soybeans as they have no chemical method of killing the soybeans in the edible bean crop.  The harvesting operation was our next stop.  Here we saw 10 combines working in the same field to harvest beans.  Notice the permanent tarps covering the grain tanks as a rain shower is an almost daily or every other day event.  The soil is very sandy so they can harvest fairly quickly after a rain but we think the sacrifice some machine performance and have extra harvest loss.  Still very impressive to see harvest on this scale.  We were told that this farm has 52 combines and the farming group as a whole has 350 machines.  No grain carts and very little in the way of gps guidance or yield monitoring.

This farm also raises fish (cattle also but we did not see that part).  They have 180 acres of fish ponds here and 400 acres total.  They have plans to expand to 0ver 2,000 acres of ponds in the future.  It takes about 8 months to grow a crop of fish to market weight (about 5-6 lbs).  They are getting about 7 tons of fish per acre and they clean and freeze the fish on site - very impressive but also very labor intensive.

A very welcome sight awaited us upon our return to the hotel - our long lost luggage! 

Saturday 06MAR 2010      

• 06:00 Flight with TAM to Rio de Janeiro/Santos Dumont via Brasilia     12:50 Arrival at Rio de Janeiro – Transfer to hotel (+1 h time lag)

• Afternoon Excursion to Sugarloaf with an wonderful view over Rio de Janeiro (entrance included)

• Dinner at Churrascaria Carretão – Ipanema (included)          Hotel Oceano Copacabana***- Copacabana

Sunday, 07MAR 2010

• 09.30 -13.30 Guided city tour with charming Santa Tereza quarter and famous Corcovado

• Afternoon -  free time       19.00 Dinner at Rio Scenarium – a cultic Samba Bar in Lapa Quarter

• Hotel Oceano Copacabana***- Copacabana

Rio is one of the most beautiful cities in the world.  It is a very old city teeming with history and fantastic views.  Built around a huge natural bay and tropical forested mountains, Rio is indeed a great stop in Brazil.  After checking in to the hotel we took the cable car to the top of the "Sugarloaf" - a rock formation stretching nearly 1,300 ft above the surface of the surrounding water.  With 360 degree panaromic views of the city, the beaches, and the surrounding mountains, the Sugarloaf is definitely worth the price of admission.  That evening we went to Churrascaria Carretão in Ipanema (one of the sections of Rio).   It was pouring rain and the water was flowing so heavily down the street that our van driver had to literally drive up on the sidewalk within a few feet of the hotel to allow us to get in.  We drove through many areas of water that was half-way up the tires.  The resturant was worth the wading as it had a food bar with just about everything plus the waiters roamed the floor armed with knives and skewers of meats (over 15 kinds), breads, and other delicacies.  The waiters would come to your place and slice off whatever you wanted - I think they got paid based on the amount of meat they got rid of!  Sunday we had a city tour with a great tour guide who gave us great information about Rio.  Did you know that in the 1800's that Rio was actually the capital of Portugal?  When Napoleon invaded Portugal, the King loaded up all his court and headed for Rio and "ran" the country from there until Napoleon left.  We also got to go up to another mountain top for more stunning views of the city.  The night before Rio had 5 inches of rain in 5 hours and much flooding occurred and 6 people were killed in landslides.  The landslides blocked some of the roads going up to the mountain so we had to take several "interesting" detours to make our destination.  As beautiful as Rio is, it also has a sad and dark side (as do most large cities).  In the midst of the beauty there are hundreds on "Flavelas" or shanty towns that gangs and drug people build.  These are sad and dangerous places and it is a real problem for the people of Rio - it makes one wonder how they will handle these issues when the host the world with the 2014 World Cup of Soccer and the 2016 Summer Olympics.