Posted on 06/18/2005 12:12:33 AM PDT by hedgetrimmer
PETROVINA, Brazil - The six-seat Embraer airplane glides from a cloudless sky onto a red-dirt runway. Views of scrub-brush savanna stretching to the Amazon River give way to fields of 10-foot high corn and boll-bursting cotton.
It's a farmer's wonderland, where the fecund soil can be had for as little as $200 a sun-drenched acre and a Maryland-sized chunk of land is cleared each year for cotton, corn, soybean and cattle farms.
Agriculture is booming in Brazil, and U.S. farmers are taking notice. Buffeted by high production costs, low market prices and the World Trade Organization, Americans increasingly look to low-cost, low-wage Brazil for economic survival.
Hundreds of U.S. farmers have visited the Brazilian states of Mato Grosso, Parana and Bahia the last two years. A few have spent millions to buy land and equipment and become Brazilian farmers. Others have put their money in U.S.-managed investment groups. For $25,000, an investor can own a piece of a 13,000-acre Western Bahia corn, cotton and soybean farm that promises a minimum 15 percent return.
Virtually every U.S. commodity farmer fears the Brazilian agricultural revolution that threatens to hollow out the domestic industry the way the Asians gutted manufacturing. "I see agriculture being taken away from us by Brazil. It's very scary," says cotton and peanut farmer Don Wood of Rochelle, Ga., after visiting Brazil. "We can keep doing what we're doing for two years. But after that, it looks like we'll stop planting cotton. There's no way we can compete with those guys."
In second place now
Brazil, the world's No. 2 agricultural power, might displace the United States as the top food producer within a decade.
The world's fifth-largest country, with a land area similar to the continental United States, could turn another 420 million acres into crops, according to the U.S. Agriculture Department. The United States has 250 million total acres of cropland.
Brazil is the world's top exporter of coffee, beef, sugar, ethanol, tobacco, poultry and orange juice.
"Sitting back home, looking at your 80 acres, you can't imagine what it's like to see tractors planting all the way to the horizon, then just disappearing," says Matthew Kruse, 26, a sixth-generation Iowa farmer who helps run an investor-backed farm. "There definitely is a lot of opportunity here that you'll not find in the United States anymore. Come down and see what you're up against."
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Especially when our own government is working against us with "free trade" deals and overregulation and overtaxation.
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PING
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Until we recognize farming for what it is (A BUSINESS!) we will remain committed to counterproductive agrisocialism.
A few years ago, Washington State farmers were getting killed by the import of apples from China and New Zealand. They started planting grapes and cherries and now export both in large numbers to Asia (and make some fine wine as well).
"Brazil, the world's No. 2 agricultural power, might displace the United States as the top food producer within a decade."
What a POS article, Brazil already is the number one world exporter of agriculture products.
When Brazil started clearing the rain forests, the pundits said the land was not fit for grazing cattle. American chemical companies went down, rode to the rescue by developing fertilizers and soil conditioners to turn it into a bonanza.
Being in the tropics, Brazil has no one growing season or fear of crop loss due to frost damages vis a vi the US, down there it is 365 days a year to plant and harvest. In the very near future much cheaper Brazilian soy bean production will wipe out US farmers.
When it comes to manufacturing, technology and agriculture our past governments had a penchant for the adage of teaching a man to fish, well we did, they did, and it has now come full circle to bite America in the ass.
ping
Brazil is the largest exporter of Oranges and Orange juice in the world.
ping
Ag and manufacturing gutted.
Mining and energy production thwarted by the enviros.
That don't leave much of substance...
Wow, whatever happened to the population explosion and not enough food?
Maybe they'll get their own Mugabe to kill their ag industry.
When the USA becomes food dependent, as it is oil dependent now, speculators can run up the price of milk and bread like they are running up the price on petroleum now. Our obesity problems will be a thing of the past as the average family goes back to growing their own food because it can't afford to buy it.
It could be worse..... what if you were a Frog farmer and could work only 35 hours per week on a postage stamp farm.
How would you compete?
No, you mean come to bite the farmers in the ass.
It will be a boon to the CONSUMER.
I have no sympathy for our socialist farmers, who demand more and more taxpayer money every year.
Everytime I hear about the "Plight of the American Farmer" I feel like puking.
Well, that should help increase the trade deficit. I wonder when it will hit the 1 trillion dollar per year level? At the present rate of growth, it won't be long.
Eventually, the house of cards will fall. I will take considerable pleasure in mocking those who whined about "lower prices for consumers."
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