March 2, 2004

Brazil Farmers To Lose More Soy To Asian Rust
 
Brazilian soy growers will be harder hit by the Asian rust fungus this season 2003-04 season (October-September) compared to last year as a result of heavy rains in the center and western regions, coupled with the usage of less effective fungicides, a leading government crop pathologist said.
 
In 2002-03, Brazil lost 3.4 million metric tons of soybeans to the fungus, scientifically named Phakospora Pachyrhizi, out of a crop of 52 million tons, according to estimates from Embrapa, the Agriculture Ministry's crop research agency.
 
"We will only get a better idea at the end of March, but the losses will likely be more than last year," said Jose Tadashi Yorinori, specialist in the yield-sapping fungus at Embrapa, speaking on the sidelines of a conference in the southern Brazilian state of Parana.
 
He said extensive travel through the center-west, Brazil's top-producing soybean region, revealed that farmers have not been able to spray fungicide on their maturing crops because of the heavy rains that have fallen in the past month, allowing the fungus a free reign to destroy foliage.
 
"It will prove difficult to distinguish between losses from the excessive rains and drought, but they are significant," he said.
 
In addition, he said that certain fungicides being used to combat the fungus have proved inefficient at killing all the spores during heavy rust attacks, leading to damage even in well-sprayed areas.
 
In the top-producing state of Mato Grosso, losses have been largely limited in regions attacked by rust last year, such as the early-harvesting municipality of Sorriso, following heavy spraying, but farmers in areas less affected last year were said to be more complacent and have been caught off guard.
 
"The problem is that this late in the cycle, it is impossible for them to buy fungicide," Yorinori said.
 
In the neighboring state of Goias, Yorinori forecast that rust had cut potential yields by 15% to 20%.
 
Completing the depressing outlook, rust has also appeared in dry areas in the south of Brazil, indicating that the fungus was more adaptable to less moist weather conditions than first thought.
 
Last month, the Agriculture Ministry lowered its Brazilian soybean production estimate for the 2003-04 crop, which is about 9% complete, to 57.67 million tons from 58.8 million tons forecast in December due to drought and Asian rust concerns.
 
Rust spores are thought to spread on winds and are now thought to be present in all Brazilian soy-producing regions. In addition, cases have been reported in Paraguay and Argentina.
 
U.S. farmers are concerned the fungus could spread north of the Rio Grande and have requested that the U.S. government restrict imports from South America.
 
However, Yorinori said that rust will likely arrive there quickly with or without controls.
 
He said Embrapa received an unconfirmed report that rust has reached Roraima, an Amazonian state, north of the equator.
 
From there, he said it would be easy for spores to reach U.S. shores on hurricane or even trade winds.
 
"It could well arrive in the next year," he said.
 
He said the development of a soybean strain highly resistant to rust was still a long way off. Brazilian crop specialists were concentrating on producing more resistant seeds that would only require one anti-rust fungicide spray during the crop cycle instead of the two or three recommended at present.
 
Brazil is the world's No. 2 soybean producer.