Brazil farmers bring protests to capital

BRASILIA - Brazil farmers, who account for 40 per cent of the country's trade revenue, protested in the national capital today and demanded more government aid to weather what many call their worst crisis in decades.

Brazil's massive grains sector, mostly soy producers, is now in its fourth week of protests across the grain belt. Farmers have been blocking key roads and railways in the center-west and south on which grains are shipped to port.

"It is lamentable that in one year we have fallen from heaven and arrived in hell," said Governor Blairo Maggi of Mato Grosso, Brazil's No 1 soybean producing state. Maggi's Amaggi operation is the largest producer of soybeans in the world.

Brazilian grain producers are seeking a government policy that will provide price support for sensitive crops, producer debt extensions and structural reforms, including lower diesel prices and tariffs on agrochemical and fertilizer imports.

The sector has been crippled by rising production costs and a strengthening local currency that eats away at earnings from exports.

"One of the world's most competitive farm regions is falling behind," Maggi added.

Governors from nine major farm states and government representatives from another three states attended a protest conference in Congress on Tuesday called "Agriculture and Ranching in Brazil: Crisis and Solutions." The governor of Rio Grande do Sul, Germano Rigotto, said the current crisis was unsustainable. His state, a major grain grower, produces 60 to 70 per cent of Brazil's farm machinery.

"It (the state) is not selling anything. We've reached our limit. We could lose thousands of jobs," Rigotto said. Agriculture accounts for about a third of all jobs in Brazil.

Homero Pereira, head of Mato Grosso's farm federation Famato, said producers were not going to protest with tractors blocking the roads in Brasilia as they have in the past.

"The protest will be worse. Growers won't plant," he said.

Although the demonstrations in Brasilia were on the calmer side with most of the producers in Congress cheering speakers' criticism of government policy, producers stepped up the blockage of roads on Tuesday across Brazil.

In Brazil's main grain state of Parana, the highway patrol reported that there were nearly 100 points of blockage by producers that were not permitting the transport of agricultural goods in the state.

The port of Paranagua, however, said it was loading grains normally with sufficient grain stocks.

So far, the ports have continued to ship grains without delays, but specialists warn that if the government does not aid the sector and bring an end to the protests, shortages could soon occur.

A Santos port agent for US agricultural giant Cargill Inc. said the company was managing to fill all of its commitments at the port by stitching together smaller lots from various sources but the protests were making business increasingly difficult as the days passed.

Brazil's agriculture minister, Roberto Rodrigues, said the government would unveil next year's Farm Plan, in which there would be more money and lower credit for producers, on May 25.

The minister announced 1 billion reais ($760 million) in emergency aid for the grains sector last week. But the sector said the figure was grossly inadequate and vowed to step up protests.

"Agriculture today is in the greatest crisis in 40 years. The government is clear on this," Rodrigues said. "We are the locomotive of the country."

- REUTERS