domingo, 23 de agosto de 2009

Foreigners have eye on rice in Brazil

SÃO PAULO, 13 de agosto de 2008 - Foreign buyers are not only coming to look at Brazilian Rice (for which they are paying a premium of up 3% in relation to Thai rice), they are also interested in investing in growing the crop in Brazil. Egyptians and Thais visited Rio Grande do Sul recently disposed to buy land to cultivate the grain and to increase average productivity, which currently is about 7 tonnes per hectare. Linked with this, trading companies also are setting themselves up in Brazil to export the grain.
'I talk to farmers so that they aren't only surprised at neighbors wanting to buy the fields, but also for not understanding the language of those looking to acquire the land,' said Zelio Hocsman, a partner of Cereais Pampeiro. According to him, a group of Thais were in the state and would also visit farms in Uruguay and Argentina, disposed to invest. ' In the midterm, Brazil will receive investors looking for land and no more for product,' he insisted.
The increased demand for Brazilian rice will make the country close the year among the top ten world exporters of the grain. Also, according to sector authorities, due to the quality of the semiprocessed product, Rio Grande do Sul is getting more orders than Thailand, a traditional exporter.
Marco Aurelio Tavarez, economic advisor of the Rio Grande do Sul Rice Institute (Irga), said that until now the state has been receiving missions interested in importing the product, like Costa Rica, Iran, Peru and India. But the Rice group, Egypt, was in Rio Grande do Sul wanting to invest in production. According to Tavarez, the Egyptians would be interested in investing between US$500,000 and US$1 million in the purchase of land and
experimental field installations. The idea would be to farm areas up to 200 hectares, aiming to increase productivity in the region. ( In that country, the average yield is 10 tonnes a hectare.) 'If this is done, they would not only supply the domestic market but also sell to the Arab countries,' he said. Tavares calculated that the interest is because Brazil is still one of the few remaining world agricultural frontiers. In Rio Grande do Sul, the
Egyptians identified two regions of interest: the Western Frontier, where the soil fosters average productivity of 8 tonnes per hectare, and the North Coast, for the high quality of the product. Hocsman recalled that three trading companies plan to set up in the state to export rice.
(Neila Baldi - Gazeta Mercantil)

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