Background to production of soya beans in Brazil?
The soya bean planting season begins as early as September in some of Brazil’s central growing regions. Once the soya bean has flowered and set pods, growers will leave the plants to dry in the field. When 90 to 100% of the pods are brown in colour they are ready to be harvested. Most farmers aim to harvest soya beans with a moisture content of 13%; however, monitoring is usually assessed by pod colour which, as a subjective assessment, may not always be as accurate as using moisture meters. More sophisticated harvest operations use combine harvesters equipped with moisture meters which allow constant measuring of pod moisture content during harvest. If drying is required, it may occur either at the farm or at cooperatives where drying machinery is shared.
From the beginning of January, Brazilian growers start to harvest soya beans growing across an estimated 36.9 million hectares of land, a production area larger than Germany. Transporting the harvested beans from field to ports remains a challenge in Brazil where the transport and crop storage infrastructure has failed to keep pace with ever-increasing production. Soya beans are trucked hundreds of kilometres from the Mato Grosso de Sol and Cerrado savanna to major export ports in Santos, Paranaguá and Rio Grande.
These days a larger proportion of soya beans originating from Mato Grosso and expanding growing regions in the North are trucked along the BR 163 highway to Amazon river port cities. There, the beans are loaded onto river barges which travel along the Amazon and Tapajós rivers in convoys to ocean ports in Sanatrem, Bacarena and São Luis.
All routes may take multiple weeks depending on availability of transport and weather conditions which severely affect the condition of the roads. The laden trucks and barges may be regularly exposed to heavy rain showers.
Brazil overtakes the US
Brazil was the world’s second largest producer of soya beans for many years, competing only with the US. The rivalry between US and Brazilian soya bean farmers has been driven by China’s growing appetite for soya beans which are crushed to produce soya bean oil for cooking and soya bean meal to feed China’s swine herd, which was 440 million strong in 2017. China imported just over 95 million tonnes of soya bean in 2017. It is estimated that the US supplied some 32.9 million tonnes of this trade, while Brazil supplied some 50.93 million tonnes.
As a result of the US-China trade war in 2018, when China imposed a retaliatory tariff on US soya beans, shipments from the US halved. During this time, Brazilian soya bean growing regions expanded further and exports increased in order to meet Chinese demand. An outbreak of African swine fever virus in August 2018 wiped out nearly half of the Chinese swine herd and resulted in reduced demand for soya bean meal in China. This was reflected in the Brazilian soya bean export figures. The trade has since started to recover and Chinese crushers are keen to make up the supply issues related to COVID-19 restrictions last year. As of May 2020, Brazil surpassed US soya bean annual production, harvesting an estimated 117 million tonnes. Brazil’s soya bean exports this year to China have been described as a bonanza.
It is known and understood that soyabean cargoes can self-heat and in some cases the types of condition of some of these bulk cargos on discharge include mould, caking and discoloration. What is the process?
The cargo temperature and the availability of moisture within a soya bean cargo are the two key factors that determine whether mould growth can be supported in soya beans in bulk storage. Mould spores that are naturally present on the soya bean seed can germinate and grow when the relative humidity at the surface of the soya bean is above 65%. The relative humidity at the surface of the beans is determined by the soya bean moisture content and temperature. Once established, mould growth can cause the degradation of the bean through the breakdown of the soya bean and production of heat. This may further lead to the self-heating pockets of cargo within a bulk stow. Pockets of self-heating cargo tend to become caked and as heat progresses, over time, the soya beans may discolour from yellow to brown to black in the worst-case scenario. High temperatures may compromise the quality of the extracted oil and protein availability within soya bean meal products.
What can be done by producers to prevent deterioration and damage?
To minimise the risk of deterioration during a voyage, the moisture content of a soya bean cargo should be as close as reasonably possible to the safe transportable moisture content at the time of shipment. Nonetheless, a risk of deterioration persists since large consignments typically comprise smaller parcels of different inherent quality, specifically parcels with varying moisture contents and potentially different temperatures.
To evaluate whether soya beans will go mouldy during a long voyage, the moisture content and cargo temperature should be measured and reviewed for each lot prior to loading the trucks/ barges for transport to ports. The data obtained can then be reviewed against the ASAE Standard D245.6 (Oct 2007 Revised 2017) standard. This standard describes the Moisture Relationships of Plant- based Agricultural Products and can assist Shippers determine whether a parcel of cargo may be liable to mould growth and associated self- heating based on the temperature
The Report • June 2021 • Issue 96 | 81
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