Top Producer Magazine, January, 2017, Q&A with Matthew Kruse Background: Raised on a corn and soybean farm in northwest Iowa, Matthew Kruse moved to Brazil in 2004. There, he managed a 30,000-acre cotton, corn and soybean operation for 10 years. He sold the operation in 2015 and is starting the Brazil Farmland Development Fund. As […]
SO PAULO deep recession, political chaos and a Zika virus epidemic have brought Brazil low, but the country is still a world-beater in one respect: agriculture.Brazil’s crop agency, Conab, said Thursday it expects record soybean crop this year and corn crop close to record. The country’s farmers look set to produce record crops of coffee and sugar cane as well this year, while cattle ranchers and chicken and hog farmers foresee reaching new heights for exports.
The Brazilian real surged to a six-month high on Friday, on the news that former president Lula de Silva was detained for questioning in a largescale corruption investigation. The strength of the real is bullish for agricultural commodities, particularly in coffee and sugar, of which Brazil is the world’s top exporter, as it means that sellers will not accept such low prices.
February 1st, 2016 www.agrimoney.com Despite Brazil’s continued political and economic turmoil, export agriculture is one sector where the bright spots have not entirely sputtered out, Agri Investor heard this week at the Brazilian-American chamber of commerce. Revenues from agri goods priced in foreign currencies and production expenses denominated in reais are primed to increase margins […]
Brazilian farm operator SLC Agricola unveiled its first large farm acquisition in more than two years, buying into the country’s slowing land market.LandCo, a subsidiary of SLC, paid R$77.99m ($19.64m) for 13,288 hectares of farmland in Mato Grosso, Brazil’s top corn and soybean producing state, taking the group’s portfolio to nearly 321,000 hectares – an area about the size of the US state of Maryland, of the UK county of Gloucestershire.
TORONTO The UN FAO has released data showing that global food prices have experienced the steepest monthly drop since 2008, casting doubt upon concerns about the impact of ethanol production in food price increases.The recent decline in food prices has coincided with a period of record ethanol production expansion, reaching a high of 94 billion litres in 2014 from 83.5 billion litres in 2012, a 10% increase over this period.
Brazil’s second, or safrinha, corn harvest has proven even bigger than was thought, with officials citing “excellent vegetative growth” for another upgrade to their production estimate. The official Brazilian government crop supply agency, Conab, raised its forecast for the safrinha corn crop, which is currently being harvested, to 51.55m tonnes, up from an estimate last month of 49.38m tonnes.
Canada’s largest alternative asset manager, Toronto-based Brookfield Asset Management, has reportedly raised $300 million for its new agricultural fund created to target Brazilian farmland.The firm is aiming for corpus of $500 million for its Brookfield Brazil Agricultural Fund II, with maximum of $700 million set. The investment fund will be used primarily to acquire cattle ranches that will be converted into soybean and sugarcane farms.
Bloomberg Business – May 5th, 2015 Brazil is looking at easing restrictions on the acquisition of land by foreigners to boost investment in agriculture and forestry as Latin America’s biggest economy heads toward its worst year since at least 1992. An effective prohibition on selling lnd to foreign individuls nd compnies hs been in plce […]