Anuário Brasileiro do Arroz 2011 - Unemat

A much sought-after market
Rice industries in Mato Grosso compete with the cereal
coming from South Brazil for North and Northeast markets
Not only in the fields, but in the
industrial units, Mato Grosso is getting
to grips with a new reality.
Currently, the industries with operations
in the State are competing with
the rice from the South in their fight
to conquer the markets of the North
and Northeast, in light of the similar
quality compared to irrigated “longgrain
rice”. The cereal from the “highlands”,
also referred to as “tropical
rice” is sold in Pará, Goiás, Tocantins,
Ceará, Maranhão and Piauí. With
the smaller volume crop, from 2006
onward, in spite of a leap in quality,
the industrial park in Mato Grosso
receded from 80 to about 30 companies,
with a capacity to process 850
thousand tons a year.
Ivo Fernandes Mendonça, president
of the Mato Grosso Rice Industry
Union (Sindarroz-MT), explains that,
with the low prices being practiced
in the first half of 2001 in South
Brazil, any fight for a market outside
the boundaries of the State is very
hard. “Rice from Rio Grande do Sul is
very cheap. There is no way competing”,
he states. On 15th April, this
year, farm gate prices in Mato Grosso
reached R$ 28 for a 60-kg sack of
rice in the husk, with an average of
58% unbroken kernels, but in Santa
Catarina a 50 kg sack of the same
type fetched R$ 20, on average, and
in Rio Grande do Sul, R$ 19.
According to Mendonça, the purchasing
process of the industries has
continued on its normal track at the
present season. “Producers have no
cash problems because they derived
good profits from corn, soybean and
cotton. And the cost to produce rice
in Mato Grosso is smaller than in the
South, as there is no irrigation in that
State. Farmers can hold the crop back
and sell later”, he argues. Prices will
certainly perform better in the Center-
West than in the South of Brazil,
industry officials ponder. “There is
not as much concentration as in the
South. This gives a picture of balanced
supply and demand”, comments the
president of Sindarroz-Mato Grosso.
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