tradicionalmenteinovador - Brazil Buyers & Sellers

consumer prices up. The high transport cost, he insists, is just one
more bottleneck faced, in general, by most Brazilian agribusiness
operations, directly linked to the insufficient arrangements of the
Country’s logistic structures, where roads in poor condition and
inadequate ports seem to be the rule.
The head of the Center for Quality Control in Horticulture of
the General Warehousing and Storage Stations of São Paulo
(Ceagesp), Anita de Souza Dias Gutierrez, comments that the
idea of fresh agricultural products is characterized by the fragmentation
of origin and production: thousands of producers,
small cultivation areas, different production regions, with distinct
harvesting periods and small daily harvests. The food that
is harvested does not go through any transformation process
and all changes and improvements must be articulated from
production to consumption. The efforts of one link could easily
be destroyed by the other link.
That is why, fresh vegetables and fruit require an extremely
complex logistics geared towards the small producers (production,
retail and food services), the perishable side, sales in a very
short period of time, the efforts for preserving all quality traits
from harvest to consumption, the diversity of origin over the year
and the huge diversity of species, varieties and metabolisms.
At stake
>> Vegetable chain fights for
improvements to the complex
production, distribution and
sales structure
The vegetable logistics has long been utterly precarious
throughout the Country, observes the president of the Brazilian
Horticultural Association (BHA), Paulo César Tavares de Melo. He
regrets the huge losses the sector suffers, something like 30% to
35%, from harvest to consumer table. He also recalls that warnings
have been issued for years regarding the accommodation
of products in improper packaging and incorrect handling in the
post-harvest stage, including grading, loading and unloading
techniques, transportation in inadequate vehicles and improper
warehousing.
In his opinion, the picture got even more complicated with
the migration of traditional producing regions, especially in the
Southeast, to other areas that offer good aptitude for the cultivation
of vegetables, but more distant from huge consuming
centers, extending the transportation distance and pushing
Inor Ag. Assmann
>> CHANGES Living through the logistic problems of the
leading wholesale markets in the Country, Anita de Souza Dias
Gutierrez, of Ceagesp, views a reflection of the “lack of organization
that pervades the entire chain, the inexistence of public policies
for the sector, the failure to enforce the existing legal requirements.”
Nonetheless, she mentions great changes that occurred
over the past years, at the initiative of producers and wholesalers
and the requirements regarding the retailers, consisting in the
adoption of better packaging, the use of sophisticated grading
machines, which grade the products by color, size and quality, the
building of brands, and the use of refrigeration and palletization.
Some serious problems, Anita adds, must be faced, like the
old-fashioned structure of the supply centers (known as Ceasas),
the non-adoption of a product measurable characterization
language, the precariousness and, in most cases, the inexistence
of a cold chain, besides the difficulty in introducing a cargo unification
system, the lack of palletization and the commercial fragility
of the vegetable growers.
The president of the BHA, Paulo César Tavares de Melo, confirms
that “the majority of the supply centers are equipped with
obsolete infrastructure and do not offer technology compatible
with the characteristics of the products, nor with the requirements
of the consumer market”. In the meantime, he speaks
highly of the initiative taken by the producers in São Paulo, who
have bet on production diversification and on the sales of readyto-consume
leafy vegetables. She maintains that these products
are duly hygienized, cut and packed in plastic bags and sold
directly to supermarkets and wholesalers, boosting the income
and reducing the losses.
Melo has it that a link is missing, the one that articulates
and coordinates the vegetable production chain. “The big retail
chains have undertaken this role, but the small-scale farmers
should get organized if they wish to have access to this new reality
in commercialization terms, while the role of the State becomes
relevant as a definer and planner of priorities and permanent
actions for the sector.”
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