What are the differences between American & Brazilian Farmers?

In the last two and a half years, I’ve been commuting between Brazil and the United States to develop and build company's branding image that I was working for... within the main US grain & cotton producing states. Many people, especially colleagues and agricultural professionals ask me, “What are the differences between American and Brazilian farmers?”

I used to simply say that Brazilian farmers seem to me to be neck-and-neck with American farmers. However, through my travels, I have gained a clearer picture of how they compare. While my overall opinion hasn’t changed, I would like to point out some specific things I have observed about the two nations and their farmers.

There’s no doubt that Brazilian farmers have the advantage in the number of crops that can be planted and harvested per year in tropical climates with little, if any, threat of frost: Two crops are grown per year in Brazil, whereas the US farmers generally can grow and harvest only one cash crop, with some exceptions in the South. The climates in the US are much more temperate to severe, with some experiencing all four seasons including extreme heat and below freezing temperatures, when compared with our climate conditions.

Another difference is that the Brazilian soybean acreage will continue to expand in future years while any expansion in U.S. soybean acreage will be limited. It is just a matter of time before Brazil will consistently be the largest soybean producer in the world.

When it comes to corn production, Brazil has a long way to go and they will not rival the U.S. in corn production any time in the foreseeable future, but Brazil has already emerged as a significant competitor in corn exports and corn exports from Brazil will continue to increase.

We see smaller and less modern equipment down South when compared to the US and the opposite up North, specially in Mato Grosso State - Brazil's largest producer - where we can find the most updated equipments.

Also, Brazil farmers have massive land resources and cheaper labor compared to the US. And with today’s electronic advancements, Brazilian farmers can catch up to US farmers technologically so much quicker than we could 50 years ago. We could possibly leap frog the US in precision and data management.

If there was one uniform complaint we hear in Brazil, it is the taxes. Most of the local farmers complain that equipment and farm supplies cost a fourth more than in nearby countries due to taxes. In the US, farmers can get their equipment and supplies much cheaper than compared to Brazil, and even get tax breaks for agricultural use.

Brazil is a young country full of optimism, but frustrated by lack of infrastructure. Americans are decades ahead of Brazil regarding infrastructure, there is a huge gap between the two countries in this matter. "The US farmer has the benefit of and efficient transport system of road, rail and rivers that gives them and advantage when exporting ( e.g. via New Orleas)", reminds me Ray Shilito. At the end of the day, American farmers end up being more competitive when compared with the Brazilians. We have vast resources, and we seem to have a long-term plan. Surprisingly, we are more focused on sustainability than Americans. American farmers came to appreciate conservation much later in the history of their production, and in Brazil, we have embraced it more quickly.

About three-fourths of Brazil’s soybeans are planted in no-till. In the US, nearly 35% of cropland acres are no-tilled and more than 10 million acres of cover crops have been seeded across the country. (American farmers also use minimum-tillage or other strategies in addition to no-till, depending on environmental conditions, soil types, cropping systems and weed pressures. Glyphosate resistance, for example, has caused no-till or minimum-till farmers in Georgia to change back to conventional tillage to gain control of the resistant weeds. While they had adopted what was considered the “more sustainable” practice, they are being forced to switch “back” to the taboo “old way of doing things”. Still, conservation tillage is on the forefront of their minds in their cropping plans.)

Adopting new ideas seems to be easier for the Americans. Sometimes Brazilian farmers succumb to peer pressure, and I don’t see that in most American farmers. They don’t always do things just because the earlier generation did them. Taking into account water use, American farmers are light-years ahead of Brazilians. In west Texas there is around 500K acres of subsurface drip irrigation (SDI). The most recent Census of Agriculture reported total U.S. irrigated cropland at 55.8 million acres for 2012. In Brazil we have about 20.000 central pivots irrigating an area of 3.1 million acres. Believe or not, we are among the top ten countries with the largest irrigated area on the planet.

One difference that really has caught my attention is the American farmer's strong feeling of community. They don't see other farmers as direct competitors. Unfortunately, in Brazil, some farmers consider that their success depends on other's failures. It’s pretty common to find farmers from rural communities in the US helping a neighbor, who has fallen ill or even passed away, finish planting or harvesting. They have a real sense of community and helping each other’s families. Honestly, I do not see that happen in Brazil’s rural communities. Most of them would see another farmer, who is struggling to make things work, as a great opportunity to buy land for a cheap price.

Despite their differences, the Brazilians have a lot in common with their American counterparts, in my observations. Neither Americans nor Brazilians has any great influence on commodity prices, what we pay for inputs, or what the weather brings to the fields. Both are always focused to produce higher yields with lower costs. Beyond where and what we farm, the passions of the Brazilian and the American farmer are the same. We really have more in common than you might think!