We encourage you to republish Dialogue Earth articles, online or in print, under the Creative Commons license. Please read our republishing guidelines to get started Agronomist Sergio Rubin kneels in a field of oats to remove some of the straw covering the soil in what has been a winter marked by great fluctuations Thermometers here in the state of Rio Grande do Sul hit 25C in mid-August – well above the average in the Brazil’s southernmost region – while on Rubin’s farm in Júlio de Castilhos the previous week’s heavy rain had not yet evaporated from the soil crumbly earth that had been seen here just months earlier caused by one of the worst droughts in Rio Grande do Sul’s recent history which lasted four years and destroyed a significant portion of the state’s soy crops. Rubin plants oats as a cover crop to keep moisture and nutrients in the soil that will be sown with soy seeds in October “The drought taught us that we can’t leave the soil bare,” explains the 65-year-old producer “It always needs to be well nourished and protected with different mulches to keep moisture in.” Soy is a key crop in Rio Grande do Sul, and its production had been climbing until the arrival of La Niña in mid-2020 which caused output to plummet in the following years This climate phenomenon causes the waters of the Pacific Ocean to cool abnormally this rare “triple-dip” La Niña event brought more rain to Brazil’s north and north-east regions southern Brazil’s farmers are now facing a new set of challenges following the arrival of El Niño this phenomenon causes an abnormal warming of the waters of the Pacific Ocean bringing changes in the winds and increased rainfall in Rio Grande do Sul from spring – planting season Rain is a determining factor in the success of a soy harvest There are two crucial moments: germination which takes place between January and February in the state This second phase was particularly affected by the years under the influence of La Niña when part of the crop did not even flower. The first drop came in the 2019/20 harvest, which fell 41% compared to the previous period, from 19.5 million to 11.4 million tonnes harvested in the state, according to data from CONAB Brazil’s agricultural supply and statistics agency the drought gave way and the sector began to recover as 9 million tonnes were harvested in 2021/22 In the last season under the influence of La Niña production was 13 million tonnes – a level that had been surpassed in the past decade following the expansion of plantations and an improvement in agricultural techniques. Producers in Rio Grande do Sul had already dealt with serious droughts – in 1985 But they couldn’t remember one as severe as the last four years “I remember [a drought season] more than 30 years ago in which we harvested 19 bags per hectare but [last year] never reached an average of 13 bags,” recalls producer Glenio Soldera his farm’s productivity exceeds 65 bags per hectare Soldera says he is one of the largest soy producers in Tupanciretã a municipality in the centre of Rio Grande do Sul that is considered the state’s soy capital the farmer recalls that though irrigation helped it could not fully overcome the damage of the drought “In areas with pivots [artificial irrigation systems] we harvested 30 bags per hectare,” says Soldera the fourth son of a family of farmers. imposed export quotas to safeguard its domestic market “It was the worst-case scenario: crop failure and an increase in the cost of production,” says Argemiro Brum, a professor in rural development at the Regional University of Northwestern Rio Grande do Sul. A drought monitoring body run by the state government estimated that more than 100,000 soy and corn farmers were affected by the four year-drought “Brazil increased soy exports to China in 2022 even with the crop failure in Rio Grande do Sul because of the harvests in Mato Grosso and Matopiba,” says Brum using the name for the region comprised of the states of Maranhão These states are covered by the Amazon and Cerrado biomes A study published in 2022 in Nature Sustainability revealed that the soy boom of the last 15 years has put pressure on sensitive biomes such as the Amazon. Grain crops currently occupy more than 5.8 million hectares, according to Mapbiomas “Soy in the Amazon accounted for 30% of the growth in commodity plantations in the country in the period,” agronomist Alencar Zanon a professor at the Federal University of Santa Maria and one of the authors of the study if Brazil does not abandon its model of land expansion built on deforestation 5.7 million additional hectares of savanna and forest could become farmland in the next 15 years. Zanon points to another possibility: “Brazil could produce 1.7 tonne more soy per hectare a year by investing in sustainable practices to improve productivity without cutting down any trees or converting new areas.” hinders the soy productivity potential in southern Brazil “The lower amount and the bad distribution of rainfall in Rio Grande do Sul leave the state at a disadvantage compared to the Cerrado climatologists are still debating the strength of El Niño another climatic phenomenon that officially arrived in Brazil at the beginning of June The National Institute of Meteorology (Inmet) expects it to be moderate to intense. Rio Grande do Sul “should have a better chance of successfully exploiting the crop” than in recent seasons a soy researcher at the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa) in Londrina But everything depends on the distribution of rainfall in the region intensified by climate change according to experts In the region where Tupanciretã and Julio de Castilhos are located 250 millimetres of rain accumulated in just two days almost twice the average level of precipitation in August “There has already been a break in maize and wheat, which is in full bloom – and more rain is coming,” laments Glenio Soldera. In the Taquari Valley, east of the producing municipalities, at least 50 people died in what is already considered the state’s biggest natural disaster in six decades For the next harvest, with above-average rainfall forecast, according to Inmet bulletins, producers also need to watch out for plant diseases such as soybean rust as most of them tend to appear with an increase in humidity “It’s a big problem when the humidity rises and the temperature doesn’t drop,” warns Farias “Weed management practices and insects are also hampered by the frequency of rain This can hinder management because you apply the product but laments a difficult situation for producers often left to fend for themselves “Not having [private] technical assistance is a very serious mistake especially after four years of bad harvests,” says the producer whose family history is intertwined with that of soy in the state started planting in the 1980s on a small property of around 20 hectares who shared the work with his five brothers. Davi’s three children grew up in the countryside of Júlio de Castilhos but were encouraged to study in Santa Maria a university hub 65 kilometres from their hometown Evandro graduated as an agronomist and worked for a technical consultancy company before joining the family in 2015 to manage four properties where they plant 3,000 hectares of soy in the municipalities of Cachoeira do Sul Júlio de Castilhos and Dilermando de Aguiar and has been focused on preparing the soil after consecutive years of drought This seemed to be a common concern among the producers Diálogo Chino spoke to. “What we have to do is ensure that the soil is better able to conserve rainwater,” says Pedro Barcellos Alves an agronomist and administrator from Tupanciretã who is also working to ensure the health of his own crops. Alves grows oats in the same way as Sérgio Rubin “Each one has roots of different sizes that penetrate the soil forming galleries through which water enters and is stored a retired researcher from Rio Grande do Sul’s State Agricultural Research Foundation where he worked on the genetic improvement of the commodity Unprotected soil retains neither water nor nutrients while some plant species protect the soil despite extreme phenomena shouldenable the grain to ripen at the right time quite different from what happened in the last year of drought “Some of the grains harvested were still green The plant was in so much trouble physiologically that it didn’t know if it was ripening or not,” he says. some of the ill-fated La Niña-period crops are still in the silos drying out before they can be sold Rio Grande do Sul soybean producers will hope that their fortunes will change by the next harvest – though as they are faced once more with unpredictable weather Sílvia Lisboa is a journalist who has written for InfoAmazonia Pedro Nakamura is a freelance investigative journalist Select from our bespoke newsletters for news best suited to you We’ve sent you an email with a confirmation link 我们向您的邮箱发送了一封确认邮件，请点击邮件中的确认链接。如果您未收到该邮件，请查看垃圾邮件。 If you would like more information about the terms of our republication policy or permission to use content, please write to us: [email protected] We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. 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