January 5, 2006

Brazil to spend US$86.9 million against soybean rust

Brazil's Agriculture Ministry said Tuesday that it will make 200 million real (US$86.9 million) available in credit this week to help farmers fight Asian soybean rust in the central-west, Brazil's soy belt.

Interest rates range between 6 percent for small producers, 8.75 percent to mid-sized producers and 10.75 percent for large soy operations. Brazil's benchmark interest rate is currently 18 percent.

At the Coamo cooperatives, 35 out of 45 farming units have Asian soy rust on their soybean plants, officials there said. Coamo farm units are grouped in three states in order to manage the more than 19,000 farms affiliated with Brazil's largest soy cooperative.

"Our properties in Mato Grosso do Sul are already on their second application of fungicides against soy rust," said Antonneio Carlos Ostrowski, Coama's chief agronomist. Mato Gross do Sul is located in the centre-west.

"So far there have been no calculable losses," Ostrowski added. Coama soy growers are expecting to harvest 3.8 million tonnes of soybeans in the 2005/06 soy crop. Harvesting begins in March.

Soy is Brazil's no. 1 agricultural export and tops the list of Brazil's growing arsenal of exported goods.

Asian soybean rust was first found in Brazil in 2002 and has since spread to the country's major soy regions.

Since then, Brazilian soy growers have lost an estimated US$2 billion annually fighting the fungus. Out of the total, nearly US$1.2 billion are due to crop loss, according to a press statement released by the Agriculture Ministry on Tuesday.

In the last soy harvest of 2004/05, Brazilian soy growers lost 4.5 million tonnes of soybeans because of Asian rust, the Ministry said.