09/16/2024 – 9:31
Marcos Meloni will not soon forget the day in late August when he fought the flames that threatened to consume his sugarcane plantation.
“When we were fighting the fire, the plastic on the tanker truck’s rearview mirror actually shrank” due to the intense heat, this farmer from Barrinha, 340 kilometers from São Paulo, in the heart of an important producing region, told AFP.
“I thought I was going to leave with that,” he admits.
The unusual fires of great magnitude, which have been occurring from the Amazon to the south of the country for several weeks, largely of criminal origin, according to authorities, are favored by a historic drought that experts attribute in part to climate change.
The result is that the harvests of sugarcane, Arabica coffee, oranges and soybeans — products of which Brazil is the world’s largest producer and exporter — are at risk of being affected. In addition, the rainfall expected for October may be, in some regions, below average.
Across the state of São Paulo, at least 231,830 hectares of sugarcane plantations — out of the four million used in the country’s main sugar-producing region — have been hit to varying degrees by the fires, with half of the crop still to be harvested in the coming months, according to the Sugarcane Industry Union (Unica).
“Where the sugarcane remained standing, we expect a reduction of half of productivity”, indicates José Guilherme Nogueira, CEO of the Organization of Associations of Sugarcane Producers of Brazil (Orplana).
Meloni had already harvested the crop, but suffered significant damage. “It burned where there were shoots, which were not coming out, due to the lack of water. Now we are waiting to see in which area it will be necessary to plant again.”
– “Open your eyes” –
In Minas Gerais, the state responsible for 70% of Brazil’s Arabica coffee production, coffee growers are also waiting for the arrival of rain, which is necessary for the flowering of coffee trees and the formation of coffee beans that will be harvested next year.
“There is a lack of water in the soil, in the last 40 years, it is the worst water deficit”, laments José Marcos Magalhães, president of Minasul, the second largest cooperative in the country. By the end of the month, “there has to be good rainfall” to have any hope of a normal harvest in 2025.
However, the adverse weather conditions of recent times have already harmed the 2024-2025 harvest, which is about to end.
While the National Supply Company (Conab) predicted an 8.2% increase in Arabica production in May, “it is likely that the data will be reduced downwards”, estimates Renato Ribeiro, from the Center for Advanced Studies in Applied Economics (Cepea) at the University of São Paulo.
Concentrated in the states of São Paulo and Minas Gerais, orange production, largely destined for the juice industry, is also expected to suffer from the drought.
After announcing last May that the 2024-2025 harvest would be the lowest in three decades, Brazil’s citrus producers’ association, Fundecitrus, further reduced its forecasts a few days ago and now estimates a 29.8% drop in production, already affected by a bacterial pest.
A pillar of the political strength and international projection of Brazilian agribusiness, soybeans are also not immune.
This year, the harvest is expected to fall by 4.7%, according to Conab, due to the drought and torrential rains that hit Rio Grande do Sul in April and May. Now, the drought is delaying new planting in producing regions.
“If the weather improves, soybean farmers will be able to catch up,” says Luiz Fernando Gutierrez, an analyst at the consulting firm Safras & Mercado. But “if the drought continues and continues into October, then we will start to have crop problems” in 2025, he warns.
One of the economic sectors most impacted by climate change, agribusiness bears great responsibility for its own misfortune, points out climatologist Carlos Nobre.
“Historically, it is the sector that emits the most greenhouse gases in Brazil. It has to reduce and eliminate deforestation. It has to open its eyes,” he says.
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