The price of rice is at the center of the debate. Traditional, it cannot be missed on the Brazilian table. Each person consumes, on average, 34 kilos of rice per year. It is the third most consumed food, second only to coffee and beans.
Current national production is 10.4 million tons, or 46% higher than this demand per inhabitant. With this, it is possible to supply up to 50 kg per inhabitant. But this situation could be very different. The National Union of the Plant Defense Products Industry (Sindiveg) proposes thinking about the following situation: imagine if the annual production of this cereal plummeted to just 1 million tons. There would only be 5 kilos of rice available for each inhabitant of the country.
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The consequences would be an exponential increase in prices, an intense impact on exports and the requirement for large imports to reduce the domestic supply deficit. Food chaos would harm the population's diet, which would be forced to change its nutritional base to other products.
“Rice is an important food in the diet of not only Brazilians, being a source of carbohydrates, proteins and fiber necessary for a healthy life. With the eventual reduction of this production, the price explosion would also affect the main cereal substitutes: corn and potatoes, for example, in addition to wheat derivatives, such as bread and pasta”, says Eliane Kay, executive director of Sindiveg.
But is the risk of running out of rice real?
According to Eliana, supply problems represent one of the impacts that pests and diseases can cause to rice cultivation. “Weeds, as well as insects and fungi, are of great concern to producers, who already suffer from constant climate variations. All of this directly affects the planting, development and harvesting of the cereal, damaging the quality and quantity of available grains”, he highlights.
For this reason, combating pests, diseases and weeds is essential not only to reduce producers' losses, but to enable a regular supply of food, meeting the population's demand. Rice grass, one of the common crop problems, can destroy 90% crops if left untreated. A single specimen can produce up to 40 thousand seeds, causing competition for nutrients, water and light.
Rice cultivation is not only impacted by this enemy. There are several others, such as signal grass and nutsedge, weeds that need attention, as well as insects, such as rice screwworm, root screwworm and root aphid. In fungi, the concern is blast, scald and brown spot.
According to Sindiveg, insects, weeds and diseases that harm rice cultivation require special treatment. The rational use, following technical and leaflet recommendations, of agricultural pesticides (herbicides, fungicides and insecticides) is the most effective way to prevent and treat phytosanitary problems without reducing productivity and production quality.
The Gross Value of Rice Production is R$ 8.8 billion, according to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE). Around 95% of production is concentrated in eight states: Rio Grande do Sul (69%), Santa Catarina (10%), Tocantins (6%), Mato Grosso (4%), Goiás (1.6%), Maranhão (1.5%), Paraná (1.3%) and Rondônia (1.2%).
*with information from the press office
Source: agrolink
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