Brazil is on track to harvest record amounts of soy, corn and other grains this year, fueled by newly booming demand for commodities, particularly from China.
Farmers in the world’s No. 1 soy producer and No. 3 corn producer have been harvesting at a record pace, capitalizing on prices that have leaped to multi-year highs on world markets after plunging because of the COVID-19 pandemic last year.
The South American giant got off to a slow start because of a drought last season in key grain-belt states, but now has a bumper crop coming in thanks to superb weather.
Photo: AFP
“Grain production in Brazil continues at the record pace we have seen through the 2020-21 harvest season, with growth of 16.8 million tonnes, or 6.5 percent, over the last harvest,” the government’s agricultural supply agency Companhia Nacional de Abastecimento said on Thursday.
Brazilian grain farmers expanded their total crop land this year by 68.5 million hectares , a 3.9 percent increase, it said.
The soy harvest is forecast to come in at an all-time high of 135.5 million tonnes, 8.6 percent more than last year’s crop, which was itself a record.
Corn is also on track for a record, with a forecast harvest of 109 million tonnes, up 6.2 percent.
The huge crop has farmers working full-steam in places such as Salto do Jacui, which sits at the heart of farm country in the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil’s third-biggest grain producing state.
Working side-by-side, combines have been plying the golden fields, cropping the sea of soybeans under a bright blue sky.
“We’re very happy with the results of this year’s harvest,” farmer Adroaldo Rossato said.
“Thanks to great weather we had excellent productivity, and prices are also very high, way above previous years,” he said on a break from harvesting.
Much of Brazil’s crop is set to head to China, whose rebound from the pandemic has put it back in the market for commodities in a big way.
The Bloomberg Commodity Index is up 32 percent over the past year, as Beijing’s renewed appetite for raw materials is driving prices to multi-year highs.
China has again become a voracious importer of not just soy — which it largely uses for hog feed — but oil, copper, iron ore and coal.
The trend has some analysts wondering whether the world is at the start of a new “commodities supercycle,” but it is likely too early to call.
“If we are to see the start of a new supercycle, this robust demand growth that we are seeing from China will have to be sustainable for several years,” ING bank head of commodities strategy Warren Patterson said in a note.
Other commodities:
‧ Gold for June delivery fell US$13.40 to US$1,744.80 an ounce, up 0.95 percent for the week.
‧ Silver for May delivery fell US$0.26 to US$25.33 an ounce, rising 1.52 percent from a week earlier, while May copper fell US$0.05 to US$4.04 a pound, a weekly increase of 1.25 percent.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy