Sugarcane agrochemicals market drops 3% in Brazil

By Leonardo Gottems, Reporter for AgroPages

The Business Intelligence Panel (BIP) survey conducted by the consultancy company, Spark Smarter Decisions, highlighted a 3% drop, in US dollars, in the trade in pesticides for sugarcane in Brazil. According to the study, exclusively revealed to AgroPages, in 2020, the sugar-energy sector purchased agrochemicals worth US$1.4 billion.

This drop is the second consecutive reduction in this market, which fell by 2% in 2019 compared to the previous year, valued at US$1.442 billion. However, in terms of the Brazilian currency, sales increased by 9% from R$5.5 billion to R$5.9 billion.

Alberto Oliveira, Project Coordinator and Market Research Specialist at Spark, explained that the negative result in US dollars is due to the 10.6% devaluation of the Brazilian currency during the harvest, noting the dollar average at the time of the purchase of inputs, as well as a 1.8% reduction in the crop’s planted area amounting to 9.122 million hectares. Oliveira added that the biggest decrease in planting area totaling 13% occurred in sugarcane, corresponding to 15% of total cultivated land in the country in 2020, or 1.385 million hectares. 

According to Spark, herbicides led the list of agrochemicals most used on sugarcane, with a 53% share and sales of US$729 million. In the second position was insecticides with US$548 million or 39% of the total market, and third was growth regulators with 4% or US$54 million. Of this amount, 66% is equivalent to ripeners (USD 35 million), 31% to flowering inhibitors (USD 17 million) and 3% to biostimulants (USD 1 million).

The category of fungicides appears in the fourth position in the BIP, with sales of US$44 million, 3% of the total movement of the crop. Adjuvant products close the result, with 1% or US$13 million.

Oliveira also pointed out that so-called selective herbicides accounted for 80% of the category's sales, adding that the demand for insecticides in this important segment was driven by the control of leafhopper pests (35%), cane borer (21%), sugarcane billbug (Sphenophorus levis), this with 19% and nematodes (13%). Termites and sugarcane rhizome borer combined accounted for 12%.