The losses in corn and soybean crops for rural producers in Rio Grande do Sul, due to drought in the state, should exceed R$19.7 billion, according to a forecast by FecoAgro-RS (Federation of Agricultural Cooperatives of the State of Rio Grande do Sul ).
The calculation of financial losses in the so-called VBP (Gross Production Value) considers the initial expectation of production by the IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics) and the percentage of losses disclosed until last week by the technical area of ​​the federation, considering the average price of products in 2022.
“We are using the price paid to the producer because it is the producer who lost, for now, then the economic complex will lose. For now, it is the producer who stopped producing”, explains President Paulo Pires.
Based on data available up to last week, FecoAgro’s estimate was that producers’ losses could exceed R$ 19.7 billion just in corn and soybean crops, crops most affected by the lack of rain, in a scenario that worsened since December 2021.
The forecast was that the soybean crop would have losses around R$14.3 billion, while corn would reach R$5.4 billion, according to the entity.
“We only evaluated corn and soybeans, but we have losses in beef cattle, milk, horticultural crops. In rice, there is already a lack of water in the irrigation dams, the damage is starting to be greater”, he points out.
With this week’s scenario, which has 209 of the 497 municipalities in Rio Grande do Sul with an emergency situation decreed until this Thursday (13), the federation assesses that the situation may worsen even more.
“The bill goes a long way. Every day of heat, with low air humidity, the damage is significant”, says Tarcisio Minetto, economist at FecoAgro-RS.
In a preliminary analysis, with prices rising and the situation worsening this week, he projects that producers may stop harvesting and marketing up to R$25 billion, based on the price of corn and soybeans in the first weeks of 2022.
At least 195,000 properties in Rio Grande do Sul had losses related to the drought in the state, according to data from Emater-RS until January 7th. The estimate points to 84,700 corn producers affected and 74,000 soy producers, in addition to about 22,000 milk producers.
FecoAgro’s analysis in the first week of the year indicated 59.2% of losses only in dry corn, a scenario that the president assesses without reversal. For soybeans, he believes that the situation could get even worse.
On Wednesday (12), the minister of agriculture, Tereza Cristina, visited properties affected by drought in the region of Santo Ângelo (RS). The state was the first stop on visits to affected regions, which also included Santa Catarina, Paraná and Mato Grosso do Sul.
In RS, the minister stated that it was not yet possible to measure the damage caused to the four affected states. FecoAgro asked Conab (National Supply Company) for a survey to calculate the losses.
“There are crops that recover, others don’t, it can still rain, there are different degrees of recovery of crops. We have to follow up, to monitor, and I made a point of coming here to see what we can already propose to mitigate the problems that the States face . We don’t want people to abandon production. We will try to minimize, we will not solve everything, but minimize, if we act quickly and now”, she declared.
This Thursday, on a visit to the Cascavel region (PR), Tereza Cristina said that it is necessary to immediately decide how to plant the so-called safrinha — the second crop, when most of the planting of corn is carried out in these states, according to Mapa ( Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply).
Rio Grande do Sul, according to Pires, has a problem of poor distribution of rainfall across different areas of the state, in the summer, but it usually has a good volume of rainfall during the year.
“We haven’t had a severe drought since 2012. The most drastic so far are 2005, there are people saying that maybe this drought will be longer, when we had frustration in more than 50% of the soybean crop, and 2012, when we had a 40% of the soybean crop”, he recalls.
“If it rains next week, they recover, they bring new spirits, but we have to hope that it continues to rain until April.”
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