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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

#81

Post by wolverine876 »

tirrellp wrote: post #58
wolverine876 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Achieving self-sufficiency in these three areas would be like a second independence for us (first was when we got free from Portugal). Every country in the world is dependent on trade, which is saves a lot of money over self-sufficiency. North Korea is the only country that tries self-sufficiency. If it costs you $100/bushel to produce wheat and you can buy it for $60/bushel (I'm fabricating numbers), why produce i…

Because 'Geopolitical Risk' is a thing. Its nice when you can buy $60/bushel wheat. Its not so nice when your dealer cuts you off. The extra $40/bushel you pay to produce in-house, thats your insurance policy against having your supplies cut off. In a world where geopolitical lines are shifting, it's a matter of national security and optionality to have your own food production capacity. Risk management.

That's not risk management, that's a panicked reaction. Risk management accepts risk, takes into account likelihood and cost, and finds the most economical outcome.

Nationalism makes you poor.

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

#82

Post by wolverine876 »

bee_rider wrote: post #56
wolverine876 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Achieving self-sufficiency in these three areas would be like a second independence for us (first was when we got free from Portugal). Every country in the world is dependent on trade, which is saves a lot of money over self-sufficiency. North Korea is the only country that tries self-sufficiency. If it costs you $100/bushel to produce wheat and you can buy it for $60/bushel (I'm fabricating numbers), why produce i…

It is nice to be self-sufficient on survival staples like grains if that is an option. If your competitors are driving a hard bargain and the downside is that you don’t get video game consoles, it isn’t the end of the world, you can call their bluff. If the downside is starvation, it is a bit tougher.

When has that happened - that a country experienced starvation because grain was withheld? Especially a country the size of Brazil?

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

#83

Post by KingOfCoders »

siftrics wrote: post #41
marcosdumay wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The commenter is not claiming Brazil is already self-sufficient in those three things.

"Currently, Brazil is self-sufficient in oil"

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

#84

Post by namaria »

senectus1 wrote: post #72
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 Watch this space.. Green Ammonia is going to be a big new development for Brazil soon... or at least there are a couple of green hydrogen companies that trying very hard to get that up and running in Brazil right now.

That's interesting but the real bottleneck is Phosphate. You can't manufacture that...

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

#85

Post by namaria »

blacksqr wrote: post #66
scythe wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The bottleneck on large-scale farming is always nitrogen fertilizer. The only adequate source of nitrogen is ammonia manufactured from petroleum. So Brazil's chief challenge will be obtaining adequate ammonium fertilizers.

Brazilian soils are phosphate poor. I believe that's typical of tropical soils. So they have a mineral bottleneck, that can't be solved by pumping energy into the supply chain.

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

#86

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#87

Post by mkl »

xeromal wrote: post #70
gexla wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Wheat: We are the top of the world exporting foods. We produce 6x our current need. What? Source? Just some rough Google search results seem to consistently show China as #1 in production and the US being #1 in exports (and in the top 3 for production.) The first result I found showed Brazil as #4. Maybe you're ultimately correct, but you should show a source when making those claims (I'm not trying to make a claim…

It could just mean they're one of the top of the world. Probably just a slip up. I wouldn't read into it too much. lol

No, they confirm that interpretation in the next paragraph: "The largest world food producer".

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

#88

Post by leonidasv »

randomdata wrote: post #34
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.

Brazil government runs a company called Conab that acts as a "buffer stock" for grains. It buys, stores and sells grains in large quantities in a continuos fashion, so the government can soften market fluctuations for those commodities over time.

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

#89

Post by gexla »

xeromal wrote: post #70
gexla wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Wheat: We are the top of the world exporting foods. We produce 6x our current need. What? Source? Just some rough Google search results seem to consistently show China as #1 in production and the US being #1 in exports (and in the top 3 for production.) The first result I found showed Brazil as #4. Maybe you're ultimately correct, but you should show a source when making those claims (I'm not trying to make a claim…

It could just mean they're one of the top of the world. Probably just a slip up. I wouldn't read into it too much. lol

The trouble is, when you're making claims which are obviously wrong, then it throws the entire argument into question. If you're getting easy things wrong, then I'm not going to bother with the rest. It's like spelling and grammar issues on your cover letter. You might be a great hire, but come on, at least deal with the easy stuff.

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

#90

Post by safety1st »

gexla wrote: post #89
xeromal wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It could just mean they're one of the top of the world. Probably just a slip up. I wouldn't read into it too much. lol

The trouble is, when you're making claims which are obviously wrong, then it throws the entire argument into question. If you're getting easy things wrong, then I'm not going to bother with the rest. It's like spelling and grammar issues on your cover letter. You might be a great hire, but come on, at least deal with the easy stuff.

It's perfectly possible to evaluate the other claims in the comment independently from this one. The behavior you're advocating (refusing to consider the rest of the comment because of one error) not only makes you look like a dick, it also makes you worse informed. Bad take dude
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