Chairpersons Kay Hankes and Tom Harms, along
with Dr. Nelson Maeda
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Our first visit was with Mario Gandini, production manager for
San Martinho, the largest sugar cane mill in Brazil with seven million tons of raw sugar
cane processed annually. Vertically integrated, the company also raises 70,000 hectares of
sugar cane. Eighty percent of the harvest, which takes place from May through November, is
done by machine. The chopped leaves stay on the field to use as fertilizer. Cane is
harvested 18 months after planting, but one crop lasts four to five harvests. |
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The plant produces sugar, alcohol, dry yeast, and two other byproducts. One ton of
sugar cane yields 310 pounds of sugar and /or alcohol. One factor of which affected sugar
production was El Nino, which created too much rain during last year’s harvest,
reducing sucrose content. In the future sugar cane production will be influenced by
environmental concerns and policies relating to reforestation and burning of the canes for
manual harvest. |
A Mechanical Suger Cane Harvestor |
IALP Class in a SugerCane Field
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Next we traveled to the nearby Roberto Rodrigues Farm. The farm
is a three-generation farm started in 1948. They farm 3,651.5 hectares, growing a rotation
of sugar cane and soybeans. Paolo, Roberto’s son and the farm’s manager,
reported that the business employs 62 full-time employees and has a full benefits package
available to all employees. |
| Paolo said the farm focuses on technology, environment, and human
resources. They’re currently doing a research study trying to implement precision
farming techniques into cane production, and minimum tillage of soybeans planted in sugar
cane straw. Brazil has a fairly new law that mandates replanting trees on 20 percent of
farmland, so the Rodrigueses are trying to comply with the new policy. Herbicide companies
have set up a pesticide package recycling program. |
Class members inspect the growing suger cane crop.
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Class members listen to Paolo
Rodrigues explain their farming techniques.
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Next we visited the Maeda Cotton Growers company. Dr. Nelson Maeda,
owner, gave us a tour of the plant with help from the tour guide, Claudia, who graciously
interpreted for us. His family became involved in cotton after the coffee crises in 1930.
Another vertically integrated business, Maeda farms and processes cotton, including 200
tons of thread, 350 tons of hydrogenated oil, and meal feed. They raise cattle on land
unsuitable for cotton and feed them meal made from cotton. Fish farming helps utilize
other cotton byproducts. Cotton harvest, which had just started, lasts four months. |
| On the two-hour ride back to the hotel, we stopped to examine coffee
plants and watched soybeans being harvested. |
Michelle Barcley inspects coffee plants
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The Coffee Bean!
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