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Brazilian crop boom threatens U.S. farms
AzStarNet ^ | 05.22.2005 | COX NEWS SERVICE

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."


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Government; News/Current Events; US: Arizona
KEYWORDS: agriculture; agriwelfare; brazil; caricom; cary; farming; freetrade; ftaa; nicecadillacfarmer; redistribution; wealth
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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."

***

Especially when our own government is working against us with "free trade" deals and overregulation and overtaxation.

1 posted on 06/18/2005 12:12:33 AM PDT by hedgetrimmer
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To: garandgal

You might be interested in this one too.


2 posted on 06/18/2005 12:13:33 AM PDT by hedgetrimmer
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To: JesseJane; Justanobody; B4Ranch

PING


3 posted on 06/18/2005 12:20:29 AM PDT by hedgetrimmer
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Read later


4 posted on 06/18/2005 12:47:38 AM PDT by spetznaz (Nuclear tipped ICBMs: The Ultimate Phallic Symbol.)
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To: hedgetrimmer
Better free trade than ag subsidies to protect agribusiness.

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).

5 posted on 06/18/2005 12:50:37 AM PDT by Clemenza (Frylock is my Homeboy)
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To: hedgetrimmer

"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.


6 posted on 06/18/2005 2:09:37 AM PDT by Ursus arctos horribilis ("It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees!" Emiliano Zapata 1879-1919)
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To: farmfriend

ping


7 posted on 06/18/2005 2:19:07 AM PDT by Iowa Granny (Dances with Hoses)
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To: Ursus arctos horribilis

Brazil is the largest exporter of Oranges and Orange juice in the world.


8 posted on 06/18/2005 2:20:05 AM PDT by Clemenza (Frylock is my Homeboy)
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To: hedgetrimmer

ping


9 posted on 06/18/2005 2:25:53 AM PDT by southland (Amy Bradley is still an American citizen even though she was sold to Slavery)
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To: Clemenza
Re: Washington State farmers

The asparagus industry is going south too.
10 posted on 06/18/2005 2:33:21 AM PDT by endthematrix (Thank you US armed forces, for everything you give and have given!)
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To: endthematrix

Ag and manufacturing gutted.

Mining and energy production thwarted by the enviros.

That don't leave much of substance...


11 posted on 06/18/2005 2:59:58 AM PDT by EternalVigilance ('Quality of Life': another name for the slippery slope into barbarism...)
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To: hedgetrimmer

Wow, whatever happened to the population explosion and not enough food?


12 posted on 06/18/2005 4:37:13 AM PDT by Soliton (Alone with everyone else.)
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To: EternalVigilance
Nah, there's plenty of jobs.

Environmental wardens.
Environmental Cops.
Environmental Lawyers.
Environmental Writers.
Environmental Grant Seekers.
Welfare Advocate.
Welfare Clerk
Welfare Assistant.
Welfare Agent.
Welfare Lawyer
Welfare Writer
Code Enforcer
Code Writer.
Tax Investigator.
Tax, Armed Physical Seizure Agent.
....Thousands more...
13 posted on 06/18/2005 4:37:53 AM PDT by Leisler
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To: hedgetrimmer

Maybe they'll get their own Mugabe to kill their ag industry.


14 posted on 06/18/2005 4:43:30 AM PDT by Koblenz (Holland: a very tolerant country. Until someone shoots you on a public street in broad daylight...)
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To: Clemenza
You are absolutely right. To a very large extent, the USA put Brazil in business with our Ag subsidies. Those subsidies allowed American Farmers to pay higher costs than the market would dictate. That does at least two bad things:

1) It removes market discipline from an industry, thus American agriculture does not focus on ways to cut costs; and,

2) It causes such things as land costs and rents to go to artificially high levels, thus cutting out competitiveness in places like Brazil.
15 posted on 06/18/2005 5:33:18 AM PDT by Tom D. (Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy. - Benj. Franklin)
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To: hedgetrimmer

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.


16 posted on 06/18/2005 5:38:55 AM PDT by kittymyrib
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To: hedgetrimmer

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?


17 posted on 06/18/2005 5:42:02 AM PDT by bert (Rename Times Square......... Rudy Square. Just in.... rename the Washington Post March??)
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To: Ursus arctos horribilis
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.

Yeah, God forbid that we help another nation's economy, thereby helping it to raise the standard of living of its citizens. We should keep them all dependent and unable to manufacture or grow anything! /sarcasm
18 posted on 06/18/2005 5:45:25 AM PDT by hispanichoosier
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To: Ursus arctos horribilis

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.


19 posted on 06/18/2005 5:45:42 AM PDT by Guillermo (George Allen '08)
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To: hedgetrimmer

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."


20 posted on 06/18/2005 5:51:36 AM PDT by neutrino (Globalization “is the economic treason that dare not speak its name.” (173))
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