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Brazil develops tropical wheat and predicts self-sufficiency in 5 years

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Re: Brazil develops tropical wheat and predicts self-sufficiency in 5 years

#31

Post by lostlogin »

marcodiego wrote: post #26

There are a few things that would make Brazil a lot more stable economically (and even socially and politically) if we achieved self-sufficiency: Fossil fuels: Currently, Brazil is self-sufficient in oil, but we export petrol to buy back refined fuels (gasoline and diesel). If we were self-sufficient in fossil fuels we would be much more immune to inflation every time OPEC decides to reduce oil output. Wheat: We are…

> Fertilizers: The largest world food producer needs imported fertilizers. The irony: our main supplier is Russia. This basically prevents Brazil taking any side in the conflict and affects our (and our buyers) food prices as much as wheat.

No, it means you can’t take a position without paying a cost. A lot of countries used to depend on Russia for various things, and they have paid a price to change this.

Re: Brazil develops tropical wheat and predicts self-sufficiency in 5 years

#32

Post by lostlogin »

mxkopy wrote: post #30
schoen wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure some actual Brazilians will comment since many are active on HN. I remember being asked in elementary school to help "buy a piece of the Amazon to stop it from being cut down". I mentioned this years later to some Brazilian friends, and they found it amazing, saying first that it almost certainly wasn't a specific plot of land, and second that enforcement of property rights and anti-poaching laws in spread-o…

At the level of randoms with chainsaws, my first thought is to treat it as a drug production problem. Treat chainsaws like methamphetamine precursors.

How well has that worked with meth?

A better analogy with the drug war would be to copy a country that manages meth by managing addiction.

Offer better alternative and employment to the farmers and loggers. Obviously this isn’t easy.

Re: Brazil develops tropical wheat and predicts self-sufficiency in 5 years

#33

Post by pfd1986 »

ouid wrote: post #4
tootie wrote: post #3

Self-sufficiency is not a real metric when it comes to commodities. Wheat sells at the market rate to whoever buys it.

markets are a construct of peacetime. self-sufficiency is not

Quote from anywhere in particular?

Re: Brazil develops tropical wheat and predicts self-sufficiency in 5 years

#34

Post by randomdata »

marcodiego wrote: post #26

There are a few things that would make Brazil a lot more stable economically (and even socially and politically) if we achieved self-sufficiency: Fossil fuels: Currently, Brazil is self-sufficient in oil, but we export petrol to buy back refined fuels (gasoline and diesel). If we were self-sufficient in fossil fuels we would be much more immune to inflation every time OPEC decides to reduce oil output. Wheat: We are…

> Nevertheless, we still need imported wheat. Ukraine war and dollar variations literary affect our bread.

This would happen imports or not. So long as wheat exports are allowed, the local price will settle on the world price as the product is able to flow to the highest bidder. An event like the Ukraine war will impact someone and that will drive the world price up.

Re: Brazil develops tropical wheat and predicts self-sufficiency in 5 years

#35

Post by lostlogin »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #25
tootie wrote: post #3

Self-sufficiency is not a real metric when it comes to commodities. Wheat sells at the market rate to whoever buys it.

So you learnt no lessons from over-reliance on Russian gas, which has caused widespread misery in Europe. What do you think will happen if there is major crop failure and food shortages? These free-market extremists don't know when to stop, they have caused more damage than the Taliban.

> Russian gas, which has caused widespread misery in Europe.

I agree with you cynicism about the free market, but the situation with Russian gas turned out way better than was feared. Party this was due to a mild winter but the forecasts were very grim for a while there.

Re: Brazil develops tropical wheat and predicts self-sufficiency in 5 years

#36

Post by kawera »

sdfhfjhdfhfsyh wrote: post #29
nemonemo wrote: post #12

This sounds amazing, but at the same time, I am concerned about the rain forest. Obviously more economically useful crops would accelerate repurposing the rain forest. Maybe the world would need to subsidize Brazil more to keep the rain forest? And could Brazil be expecting more subsidy with this development?

I wouldn't worry about the rain forest since. Not only it's likely too wet and hot for the new wheat cultivars, but AFAIK deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon is driven mostly by cattle-ranching and land speculation.

And logging, mostly to supply rich countries with some exotic timber.

Re: Brazil develops tropical wheat and predicts self-sufficiency in 5 years

#37

Post by scythe »

abdullahkhalids wrote: post #5

They claim the current wheat yield is 3.3 tons/hectare while the new variety has yield 10 tons/hectare, about a 3x difference. What impact does this have on the micronutrient profile of the harvested crop? And does this result in faster depletion of those micronutrients from the soil, i.e. is it sustainable to harvest this crop?

Yields of most plants are higher in the tropics: there is more sunlight, more water, and no frost. Wheat, historically, hasn't been able to benefit from this as it wasn't adapted to the climate.

Most minor minerals are present in plants to the tune of 0.001% by weight or less. We extract many times as much manganese, chromium, copper etc as the metal as we would from the soil. Selenium is generally postulated as the limiting element for life on Earth, but we're not yet at the point of needing to supplement it in soil. Brazil nuts are supposedly a particularly Se-avid crop, yet they haven't destroyed the ecosystem of Brazil so far.

Soil depletion more generally consists of changes in texture (less water holding) and reduced ability to slow-release the nutrients we already add (NPK). It has been addressed by adding clays — chiefly aluminosilicates — which are predominantly composed of elements not utilized by living things (mostly). In other words, it's usually not the nutrients themselves being removed from a "depleted" soil, at least in the modern day.

Re: Brazil develops tropical wheat and predicts self-sufficiency in 5 years

#38

Post by mxkopy »

lostlogin wrote: post #32
mxkopy wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the level of randoms with chainsaws, my first thought is to treat it as a drug production problem. Treat chainsaws like methamphetamine precursors.

How well has that worked with meth? A better analogy with the drug war would be to copy a country that manages meth by managing addiction. Offer better alternative and employment to the farmers and loggers. Obviously this isn’t easy.

I don't think it's mutually exclusive. You can deny chainsaws to bad actors while also trying to reduce the number of bad actors compassionately and nonviolently. In the drug war analogy, maybe decriminalize possession but heavily regulate production/sales.

Re: Brazil develops tropical wheat and predicts self-sufficiency in 5 years

#39

Post by marcosdumay »

marcodiego wrote: post #26

There are a few things that would make Brazil a lot more stable economically (and even socially and politically) if we achieved self-sufficiency: Fossil fuels: Currently, Brazil is self-sufficient in oil, but we export petrol to buy back refined fuels (gasoline and diesel). If we were self-sufficient in fossil fuels we would be much more immune to inflation every time OPEC decides to reduce oil output. Wheat: We are…

Hum... Nope, Brazil is not really self-sufficient in oil. It was for a while, but the production did not keep up with the domestic consumption. Anyway, Brazil exports its oil and imports some slightly more expensive one because the existing refineries weren't built to process the relatively recently discovered kind of it that consists on most of the production. And there is little sense in upgrading them.

About wheat, yeah, nobody ever place any priority on being self-sustaining. That's because it's not really important. Brazil has a couple of neighbors that produce enough wheat for supplying it, and need quite a bunch of stuff Brazil produces. The only reason anybody is going for self-sustainance now is because it's profitable, and things will change once it's not.

On fertilizers, well, Brazil can not produce enough of the material for the fertilizers it imports.

Re: Brazil develops tropical wheat and predicts self-sufficiency in 5 years

#40

Post by lostlogin »

ouid wrote: post #4
tootie wrote: post #3

Self-sufficiency is not a real metric when it comes to commodities. Wheat sells at the market rate to whoever buys it.

markets are a construct of peacetime. self-sufficiency is not

Turning a country into an international prepper would be useful in the worst case scenario, but it’s expensive option that is unlikely to be needed.

Isolationism is part of this and I’d argue this makes conflict more likely, not less.

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