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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

#161

Post by roqi »

mkoubaa wrote: post #49
lostlogin wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

If Brazil exports less food it isn't Brazil alone that would pay the price

> If Brazil exports less food it isn't Brazil alone that would pay the price

Ukraine is/was the world's bread basket. Supporting Russia jeopardizes the world's access to food. Brazil's actions don't exist in a vacuum.

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

#162

Post by rcarr »

walthamstow wrote: post #95
School-Cotton wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Latin American countries are probably too different to unify. Some are led by right-wing populists (El Salvador) and some by left-wing ones (Colombia, Brazil). Some are rich (Uruguay) and some are very poor (Nicaragua, Venezuela). Some are huge and powerful (Brazil and Mexico) and would be able to completely dominate the rest. Some are liberal democracies and some are one-party states. On the cultural level, they…

I think your first paragraph describes the EU/EEA too, or at least it did when Poland et al joined in 2004. Germany and France (and the UK at the time) dominate. Poor nations like Poland and Greece with rich ones like Norway. Conservative countries like Hungary alongside progressive social democracies like France and Sweden.

People have got to stop calling Poland a poor country. It’s on track to overtake the UK in terms of quality of life in the middle of the decade.

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

#163

Post by roqi »

worstestes wrote: post #105
matheusmoreira wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This basically prevents Brazil taking any side in the conflict and affects our (and our buyers) food prices as much as wheat. Not at all. President Lula sided with China and Russia already. Dude loves communists. He even had Venezuelan dictator Maduro over for lunch.

Ah so Russia is a communist country?

> Ah so Russia is a communist country?

Russia still represents itself as the successor of the Soviet Union, and hardline communist parties still hold onto the (whitewashed) history of the Soviet Union to validate their existence. Russia's armed forces in Ukraine still fly the Soviet union flag, and Putin's propaganda still holds onto Soviet leaders like Lenin to push their propaganda.

To the eyes of hardline communist parties throughout the world, Russia represents the heir of the Soviet Union thus communism, and that's by Putin's design.

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

#164

Post by roqi »

leonidasv wrote: post #88
randomdata wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

That's interesting. It reads as a central bank of grains.

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

#165

Post by rcarr »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #153
piva00 wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Let's see... Relativization of private property, media censorship, taxes on accumulated capital, religious persecution. This is red-scare rhetoric, not communism. > Who cares? Anyone trying to have a discussion/debate about ideologies, like what you are trying to do. Words have meaning, in a discussion this meaning matters. If you don't care, then you don't care for the discussion, you are just soapboxing.

> This is red-scare rhetoric, not communism. It's not "rhetoric" at all, it's literally what he's doing. His strategy has always been to slowly install socialism small bits at a time so that nobody notices. Therefore it's obvious what his objective is when he starts saying you should have to "mediate" with someone who invades your private property instead of having access to the justice system or the right to use for…

Why do you throw the word socialism about as if it is exactly the same as communism? The Nordic nations are socialist democracies and they’re regarded as some of the best run and happiest places on earth, with a business friendly environment that allows for entrepreneurs to take risks because they know there is a social safety net to fall back on if it doesn’t work out.

The left and right can be both right and wrong simultaneously. You’re meant to adapt policies for the contextual situation. In fact, this is the entire point of a democracy, to oscillate between opposing ideologies throughout time as the flaws of one become apparent to such an extent that the incumbent system starts showing weakness, disgruntling the populace to such an extent that they course correct the system by electing the opposing ideology.

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

#166

Post by Rexxar »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #106
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'd burn that entire jungle down if it brought us industry, development and prosperity in exchange. Why is it that only developed countries got to exploit their natural resources?

You got it reversed, developed countries have stopped to use their forest when they industrialized and start to use coal/oil instead of wood and when increase in food production make the use of less productive land unnecessary. Thinking you can be richer by destroying Amazonia is pure delusion.

For example, the forest is bigger in France now that is was 1000 years ago : http://geoconfluences.ens-lyon.fr/geoconfluences/images/arti...

Destroying forest is a short term low-productivity cash grab. It will not make any country rich.

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

#167

Post by matheusmoreira »

rcarr wrote: post #165
matheusmoreira wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is red-scare rhetoric, not communism. It's not "rhetoric" at all, it's literally what he's doing. His strategy has always been to slowly install socialism small bits at a time so that nobody notices. Therefore it's obvious what his objective is when he starts saying you should have to "mediate" with someone who invades your private property instead of having access to the justice system or the right to use for…

Why do you throw the word socialism about as if it is exactly the same as communism? The Nordic nations are socialist democracies and they’re regarded as some of the best run and happiest places on earth, with a business friendly environment that allows for entrepreneurs to take risks because they know there is a social safety net to fall back on if it doesn’t work out. The left and right can be both right and wrong…

> Why do you throw the word socialism about as if it is exactly the same as communism?

Because I don't respect them enough to even make the distinction. I feel bad even saying the words "communist" and "socialist". I really don't want to give any legitimacy to ideas that caused misery, famine, oppression, genocide every time they were put in practice anywhere. I want those ideas to literally fade from people's minds instead of being studied as if they were serious subjects.

I've had the privilege of reading posts written by citizens of formerly communist states here on HN. That's all the evidence I need. It's not pretty.

> The Nordic nations are socialist democracies and they’re regarded as some of the best run and happiest places on earth, with a business friendly environment that allows for entrepreneurs to take risks because they know there is a social safety net to fall back on if it doesn’t work out.

So what you're telling me is there's supposedly socialist nations in Europe right now that allow businesses to accumulate capital. Doesn't make any sense.

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

#168

Post by marcodiego »

roqi wrote: post #159
irusensei wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brazil is not Europe. It’s not going to be some minor inconvenience like having people to take cold showers and virtual signal on the internet. There will be famine and the poorest people will die.

> Brazil is not Europe. It’s not going to be some minor inconvenience like having people to take cold showers and virtual signal on the internet. There will be famine and the poorest people will die. I don't get your point. Where do you see this fundamental difference between Brazil and Europe? Europe was highly dependant on Russia for it's energy supply, to the point that Putin was hoping to leverage that to conduct…

Brazilian is an extremely unequal country. The poorest population is very sensitive to foods' prices fluctuation. Rejecting Russian fertilizers could mean famine (and not only for Brazil).

There are some recent photos that show the result of accumulated inflation and unemployment during the pandemic:

People scavenging bones to eat: https://f.i.uol.com.br/fotografia/2021/09/29/16329448496154c...

People scavenging garbage to eat: https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-b...

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

#169

Post by engineer_22 »

roqi wrote: post #159
irusensei wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brazil is not Europe. It’s not going to be some minor inconvenience like having people to take cold showers and virtual signal on the internet. There will be famine and the poorest people will die.

> Brazil is not Europe. It’s not going to be some minor inconvenience like having people to take cold showers and virtual signal on the internet. There will be famine and the poorest people will die. I don't get your point. Where do you see this fundamental difference between Brazil and Europe? Europe was highly dependant on Russia for it's energy supply, to the point that Putin was hoping to leverage that to conduct…

This was possible because alternative fuel sources were available. US fuel exports to Europe reached record levels, and political will was a large part of that.

Alternative fertilizer suppliers might not be available.

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

#170

Post by matheusmoreira »

Rexxar wrote: post #166
matheusmoreira wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd burn that entire jungle down if it brought us industry, development and prosperity in exchange. Why is it that only developed countries got to exploit their natural resources?

You got it reversed, developed countries have stopped to use their forest when they industrialized and start to use coal/oil instead of wood and when increase in food production make the use of less productive land unnecessary. Thinking you can be richer by destroying Amazonia is pure delusion. For example, the forest is bigger in France now that is was 1000 years ago : http://geoconfluences.ens-lyon.fr/geoconfluence…

> Thinking you can be richer by destroying Amazonia is pure delusion.

What? Literally any economical activity you can think of would be a better use for that massive amount of land. If you told me I could have a billion dollar fab built in my country but the only place I could build it was in the middle of the amazon, it wouldn't take me even one second to decide.

Did you know there's oil reserves in the amazon? People in the government keep making noises about that. Every once in a while I see news about some environmental drama concerning the extraction of petroleum in that region. I wish they'd just do it already.

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