Brazil Agricultural Tour

Brazil   the Best-kept secrets of an Agri-giant

February 4 – 15, 2014.

To understand Brazil’s agriculture, you must visit where it all started in Parana state and where all the action takes place now in the vast 500 million acre plains of the Cerrado. But first, we’ll relax in a luxury hotel / spa at Iguacu Falls where Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil meet.  The Coopavel Farm Show is on in nearby Cascavel and we’ll spend a day there seeing equipment displays, demos, trade exhibits and trial plots.   Then we head to Curitiba, Parana’s capital city with its unique “green plan” and tour the harbor of Paranagua from where most of the soys are exported to world markets.  The picturesque train ride on the Serra Verde Express through Mata Atlantica natural forest is also a highlight.

For most of this first week, we will tour and learn about OCEPAR, the Co-Operative system, the farmers’ market, Assentamentos and Land Reform in Brazil, the Agro-ecology School of Latin America, Londrina Research Station, the Canadian Embassy Q&A and, of course visits to technologically advanced cash crop and livestock farms..

They we fly to Brazil’s heartland of Mato Gosso state to witness the growth there in soybeans, cotton, livestock and increasingly value-added technology. These farms are relatively new within the past 40 years and evolved from scrubland into mega-farm sizes.  You’ll be amazed at fields stretching from horizon to horizon and hear about how farmers are organized y through APROSOJA, a farmer organization of soy & corn growers, UNICOTTON / COOPERFIBRA , a processor and exporter of cotton, and self-contained farms like Grupo Maggi and Sementes Bom Futuro. You’ve read about all of this…………..now isn’t it your turn to come and experience it firsthand?

There is a lot more of Brazil still to explore.  So when the tour finishes, why not do an Add-On to Rio de Janeiro, a city of extreme beauty boasting Corcovado and Sugar Loaf tourist sites.  Or fly to Manaus to experience Amazonia which is unlike any other part of Brazil.  There’s also the Pantanal, an ecological wonder and largest wetland in the world.