Agricultural Aviation Congress plans directions for 2020

The 2019 program has barely ended, on Thursday (1st), the Brazilian Agricultural Aviation Congress is already counting down to its 2020 edition, which remains in Sertãozinho, in the interior of São Paulo. The movement next year will take place again at the Zanini Events Center, which last week hosted the largest aeroagricultural meeting ever held in the country and now the largest in the world in terms of public and exhibitor participation. Since Tuesday (July 30), 3,1 visitors visited the 143 exhibitors and followed the 42 lectures and five discussion forums – Scientific, Political, on the use of drones, on the lack of aviation gasoline (avgas) and application technologies, which occupied 9 of the 12 square meters of the space pavilion. Including a display of planes and drones and firefighting demonstrations with agricultural aircraft outside. The program had the participation of representatives from 11 countries and 105 aeroagricultural companies – which represents more than 60% of Sindag members and around 40% of the 253 companies in the sector in the country.

While suppliers of technologies, equipment and services celebrate the movement in the technical exhibition, the National Union of Agricultural Aviation Companies (Sindag) celebrates the new phase of an event that has gained political and strategic consistency and has also lined up a list of articulations and research to be worked on over the next 12 months. In other words, the Congress agenda no longer actually stops between one edition and another.

It is possible to expect significant numbers from now on, especially considering that the next program in Sertãozinho will have Latin American coverage – according to the relay that has existed for more than a decade between Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil. A scenario, in fact, that should unfold at the end of this week, in Mercosur and Latin American Agricultural Aviation Congress 2019, which starts this Wednesday and runs until Friday (7th to 9th), in Uruguay. On the last day of the meeting – in Termas del Arapey, in the department of Salto, in the northwest of the country, the president of Sindag, Thiago Magalhães, must take command of the Mercosur and Latin American Agricultural Aviation Committee, to prepare the 2020 edition in Brazil.

Projections in the agricultural plane area 

For Magalhães, the increase in the plurality of debates on strategic and communication topics was extremely positive for the consistency of the Congress in Sertãozinho, preparing a greater rapprochement with society. Which, he hopes, should clarify the general view of the importance of the expected growth in the sector in the coming years. “Making a simplistic analysis, from the predicted growth of 240 million tons of grains (in the 2019/2020 harvest, according to the Ministry of Agriculture) to 300 million in the next five years (according to Mapa estimates), Brazilian agriculture will need 200 to 400 new aircraft, to guarantee productivity with environmental safety”, assesses the president of Sindag.

“We opened space for technology and service startups, we had a massive presence of aeronautical technology schools – including Sesi’s mobile avionics laboratory and the project of a technical school manufacturing an experimental wooden plane, not to mention drone technology and other innovations. Not leaving aside the Colmeia Viva program and counting on high-technology companies in chemical and biological products”, ponders director Gabriel Colle. “In short, we have brought segments that were previously dispersed even closer together, but which have a lot to offer the sector and vice versa. It was a huge intellectual gain”, he summarizes.

The Agricultural Aviation Congress in Sertãozinho also served for the aeroagricultural sector to establish a position with its partners and in the transparency and continuous improvement of the activity. Both in the meeting with journalists – Press Meeting, on the eve of the opening of the program, as well as the signing of the Sindag agreement with the Organization of Sugarcane Planters of the Center-South Region of Brazil (Orplana) and the Sugarcane Industry Union (Unica), which took place at the opening of the Congress. Or even at the Scientific Forum and in conversations involving the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa) and the Ministry of Agriculture – that occurred during programming. Not to mention the Political Forum, already at the end of the program.

Businesspeople present at the Agricultural Aviation Congress 

The president of Air Tractor (the world's largest manufacturer of agricultural aircraft), Jim Hirsch, reinforces the importance of the Congress for suppliers. “It is an honor to be here in Brazil with all our customers and their families. The Congress promoted by Sindag is the second most important event in which Air Tractor participates annually. It has been very beneficial for us and continues to grow, as does our customer base in Brazil”, highlights the Texan executive – the other event Hirsch refers to is the North American Agricultural Aviation Association (NAAA) Convention, which has the highest sales volume and where its main market is – and in which Sindag should participate, next November, in Orlando, California.

Air Tractor supplies turboprop aircraft, which represent a segment that, in Brazil, is growing twice as fast as the total increase in agricultural aviation in the country (which was 3,74% in 2018).

Among the visitors, South African businessman Eugene Kalafatis came to the Sindag event for the second time. “The fair in Sertãozinho is definitely much bigger (than the 2018 edition, which he also visited, in Maringá/PR). There are a lot more people here.” A customer of Travicar, from Rio Grande do Sul, from whom he purchased an electrostatic spraying system (SPE), Kalafatis says he also comes to learn. “Brazil is truly a leader when it comes to agriculture and there are many ideas that we took back to South Africa after visiting the congress”, points out the businessman, who treats 76 thousand hectares of crops (especially sugarcane). sugar) with its helicopters and also supplies rotary wing systems to several countries.

Optimism that also encompasses companies of all sizes, such as Gusmang Mangueiras Aeronáuticas from Paraná. “We have participated in the Congress since the 2017 edition (which took place in Canela/RS). We always got new customers and did a lot of business”, says businessman Gustavo Aluísio de Paula. In addition to the showcase, for him the event's difference is the personal contact with the entire aeroagricultural chain. “It’s where operators can get to know our products up close.” Feedback that he considers extremely important and that the entrepreneur no longer wants to give up. “We have already reserved our stand for 2020”, he points out.

Research into aerial applications 

Speaking of reflection for next year, the promotion of research on aerial applications, both for technical improvement and to subsidize communication actions on the sector's safety, were on the agenda in the event's discussion areas. One of them was the Scientific Forum, coordinated by professor Maurício Pasini, from the University of Cruz Alta (Unicruz). During the three-day event, Pasini spoke with operators to identify bottlenecks in the sector in the scientific field and with researchers to evaluate the scenario of existing studies on the topic. “The conclusion was that we have little generation of knowledge that has immediate practical application, at the same time that we were able to develop goals for the next three years, by themes”. For 2020, the focus is to bring studies to Congress that prove the efficiency and improve the aerial tool. “This is to change public opinion” highlights the Forum coordinator.

The other front of action was the meeting between representatives from Embrapa and Sindag with the Agricultural Aviation coordinator at the Agricultural Defense Secretariat (SDA) of the Ministry of Agriculture, Uéllen Lisoski Duarte Colatto. At the meeting, researcher Paulo Estevão Cruvinel, from Embrapa, and Welington Carvalho, from the Federal University of Lavras (Ufla) and representative of Sindag in the research project that took place between 2013 and 2017 in the South Central-West and Southeast, reinforced to Uéllen the request for support to continue research.

At the end of June, the project had a Technical Note highlighting the safety and advantages of the aerial tool for the country which, according to the document, needs a strategic food security plan, “discussing without extremism” the environmentally sustainable development of agriculture. According to Uélen, who took over as Agricultural Aviation Coordinator in June, the topic is already on an agenda agreed with Sindag. “The presence at the Agricultural Aviation Congress was important to have a broad view of the entire sector and also to address various topics that we must work on from now on”, he added.