Study will diagnose links in the rice chain

The National Rice Sector Chamber met this Tuesday morning (14/2) during the 33rd Official Opening of the Rice and Grains Harvest in Lowlands, in Capão do Leão. The meeting was held in the Frederico Costa Auditorium and addressed, among other topics, a study that will map the rice chain, and will be coordinated by the Center for Advanced Studies in Applied Economics of the School of Agronomy at the University of São Paulo and Embrapa.

According to the president of the Chamber, Daire Coutinho, entities in the sector are signing contracts with their shares and, within three months, it is possible to have the first results of this diagnosis of the chain. Details will be observed from the inside of the gate to the consumer's view of the product.

“Entities in general are telling Cepea and Embrapa their needs and from what perspective they will like this work and eventually it should start in the first days of March. It will unfold by carrying out an objective analysis of all links in the chain, from the participation of inputs to consumption issues”, detailed Coutinho. According to him, consumption has been treated as a sub-index of the supply and demand framework. This will be the first time that research has surveyed the reality of rice consumption in Brazil.

For Daire Coutinho, in general the chain is very homogeneous. He believes that the last two years have brought rice producers a different situation from previous years and as a result, even due to the producer's personal search for other alternatives, there has been an increase in the planting of soybeans, corn and livestock farming itself.

“As well as the entities that also saw this difficulty and brought to the producer the vision of this need for change. And today we see here at the Opening of the Rice Harvest, those who go to the stands, those who go to the fields, see crops other than just rice. This brought the producer to a situation that was a little different from the last few years he had been in”, said the director. Being multi-season, for Coutinho, is a path of no return.

“I think this has come, it will stay, regions like mine there in Camaquã we are no longer seeing the growth of soybeans, but rather the growth of irrigated soybeans and the producer investing a lot in this and this is certainly here to stay”, he said .

He says that the settlement of Banhado do Colégio, in Camaquã, was a pioneer in corn production and today we are seeing corn production return to these areas that were effectively, a few years ago, exclusive to rice. “There was a fight for more areas for rice irrigation and today there is plenty of water in the Arroio Duro dam area for rice irrigation and this area is being used for soybean irrigation”, he details.

He also celebrated the speech by the president of Federarroz, Alexandre Velho, regarding the evolution of the rice production chain. “We saw in Alexandre's words today a recognition that some of the difficulties go beyond the relationship and are there for the consumer, there in the retail sector, which unfortunately is part of this chain, but does not participate. So I believe that all this evolution that has been happening internally will give us the possibility of understanding these consumption issues a little more and this survey by Cepea and Embrapa will focus a lot on this and today it is an attitude to be known”, assessed Daire Coutinho. The estimate is that not only the consumption relationship in relation to the product will be known, but also the consumer's own issues, how he views the entire chain behind a packet of rice.