In what is described as the heaviest season of rain in many parts of Brazil, with up to 1,000 mm recorded since January in the North of Brazil, it could not stop the melon exports from Agricola Famosa. Carlo Porro, CEO of Agricola Famosa: "In the North we had a lot of rain, around 1,000mm, which is a record. This never happened in our region before. Under this heavy rain, we in Brazil have succeeded to produce and export melons to Europe."
Porro says, although the rains caused big losses in their melon production, harvesting and exporting continued. "It was not so much the amount of rain, even though it was a huge amount. It's the fact that it was raining every day. Normally in the North we have sunshine in-between the rain. We had farms that lost 20% to 35% of production, some watermelon farms lost even up to 30%. The rains started very early this year, since January. This time it rained every day, with big rains of 100 mm per day. This slowed down our production. The very good news is, even with this amount of rain, we still managed to export big volumes."
He says the losses started to mount from January, when the rain just never stopped. At Agricola Famosa, they quickly learned a few lessons to ensure continued supply. The company is the world's largest melon and watermelon grower and exporter from Brazil, with guaranteed 12 month supply of melons to Europe.
"We had losses since January through February on mainly watermelons, which were planted in farms with heavy soils. All our production in the sandy soil was harvested, we had reasonable good productivity that was a huge success for us. Despite this amount of rain, we're still shipping 100 to 120 containers to Europe per week. We managed to produce during the heavy rains. It also helped to expand our land. We're buying more land in sandy soils. This will enable us to be super secure with our production. We will go in earlier to plant in sand soils. We will not rely on the normal climate, it is changing. By doing this, we are minimizing the risk of what happened this year," explains Porro.
He says everything they do has showed good results. "We ship during the whole Central American season. Now to evaluate productivity we had. I hope and believe this amount of rain will not be regular, even if it is the new normal, we can guarantee production during the Central American supply season."
Porro said they in the North of Brazil are relieved not to have been affected by the flooding that led to the deaths of 78 people in the South of the country since last week. This tragedy follows after a hydropower plant's dam that burst its banks in the Rio Grande do Sul state in the South of the country.
For more information:
Carlo Porro
Agricola Famosa
Tel: +55 85 991999392
Email: [email protected]
www.agricolafamosa.com.br