The new data collection period is necessary to check the expansion, renewal and retraction of the area during the year 2016. Fundecitrus agents will visit 2,625 orange fields (blocks of plants) – corresponding to 5% of the total in the citrus park – to count all the trees. The sites were determined by draw based on stratification by region, variety and age. This phase is the first step of the 2017/18 orange forecast production and it is expected to be completed in March.

Next, a stripping of 2,200 trees will be carried out, whose fruits will be separated by bloom, counted and weighted. The stripping data combined with the tree inventory make up the production numbers, which will be released on May 10^th.

Fundecitrus implemented the Orange Production Forecast (PES, in Portuguese) in October 2014, in response to a demand from the citrus sector, which sought to have accurate information on the orange production and the citrus park, gathered in a transparent way, based on field measurements, counting and weighting of the fruits. The research was carried out in partnership with Markestrat, the School of Economics, Business and Accounting of the University of São Paulo, campus Ribeirão Preto and the Department of Statistics of the School of Agricultural and Veterinarian Sciences of the São Paulo State University, campus Jaboticabal.

Watch the video explaining more about the orange production forecast:

According to Fundecitrus researcher Mr. Marcelo Scapin, one of the people responsible for the system, the information allows the citrus grower to manage the control of diseases and pests without wasting the pesticides, using only the volume needed. “The citrus growers will be able to adjust the volume and pesticide rates, and adjust the equipment in the right way”, he says. The accurate control reflects in a smaller amount of product waste, avoiding soil contamination, and making the operation even more sustainable.

According to Fundecitrus, with the app it’s possible to reduce the water volume up to 70% to control the psyllid, up to 60% for postbloom fruit drop, 30% for citrus leprosis, and between 40 and 50% for citrus black spot. “The SPIF is a way to take the knowledge generated by research to the citrus growers in a more practical and accessible way”, says Mr. Scapin.

To do the math, the SPIF was based on the results of research on Application Technology that have been carried out in Fundecitrus for over ten years for citrus leprosis, citrus black spots, citrus canker, postbloom fruit drop (PFD) and psyllids. The purpose of the system is to provide these results in a practical way to be applied in the field and to assist in the correct sizing of the spraying.

The app is available for free in the desktop version (offline) and can be also accessed at the Fundecitrus website (Click here). A mobile version will be launched soon, available for Android, IOS and Windows.

To know more about the new technology check the link, in Portuguese

http://www.fundecitrus.com.br/comunicacao/noticias/integra/fundecitrus-lanca-aplicativo-para-ajudar-a-calcular-pulverizacoes/478

The 22^nd World Climate Conference (COP 22), held in November in Morocco, ended with the signing of the Marrakech Action Proclamation, a statement on what the State Parties consider a priority to try to contain global warming in the coming years. “The climate is warming at an alarming and unprecedented rate and we have a duty to respond urgently to the problem”, says the document published by the Ministry of Environment, which makes an assessment of the Brazilian participation in the event.

According to the document, the Brazilian government has evaluated COP22 as a “starting point”, whose focus is the definition of the so-called “rulebook” for the implementation of the obligations assumed under the Agreement. Brazil participated in the COP with a wide and diversified delegation, including representatives from different scopes of Government, academia, private entities and non-governmental organizations. There were 271 Brazilian delegates in Marrakech, of which 87 connected to the Government and 184 from civil society.

The report also outlines the position adopted by the Brazilian representatives at the Conference, such as the view that the Paris Agreement is irreversible and that the work needs to be speeded up to implement it. It also points out to the need, discussed at COP 22, for developed countries to increase their level of funding by defining a “road map” that shows how the $ 100 billion annual target will be achieved by 2020.

The service has been offered for free to citrus growers since 2004, when citrus greening appeared in the groves of São Paulo. It meets the demand of producers who have questions related to the presence or not of the disease in the groves. In addition to HLB, a diagnosis is also made for CVC (citrus variegated chlorosis). In this case, the number of plants assessed was 7.4 thousand, from 2008 to 2016.

“The demand for analyzis today is lower due to the greater knowledge of the symptoms of HLB on the part of the citrus growers and the low index of CVC in the citrus park. But even so, the demand is high because the diagnosis gives certainty about the infection or not of the plant”, says Fundecitrus researcher Mr. Nelson Arno Wulff, responsible for the laboratory.

In 2016, a new device was acquired for the laboratory that provides economy and agility in the diagnostic process and it allows to reduce the analysis time from 30 minutes to 2 and a half minutes. In addition to optimizing the analyzis, the equipment brought savings of 27% in material expenses.

“The laboratory is always looking to deliver faster and faster results, with less reagent use and less waste, following the trend of sustainability-driven diagnostics”, says Wulff.

More information on sample shipment is available at: http://www.fundecitrus.com.br/pesquisa/laboratorio

The results of the “Pesquisa de Estimativa de Safra-PES” (Crop Forecast Research) give the true dimension of citrus cultivation and contribute to the planning of the future of the sector, so that the culture remains one of the most important socially and economically. In São Paulo State the citrus sector is among the 20 main job creators*.

*See our last post about job creations in the citrus sector here

Annually, Fundecitrus research agents visit citrus belt properties to collect information on the number of bearing and non-bearing trees, irrigated areas, cultivated varieties, age, new plantings or eradications.

From the results, it will be possible to make a more accurate planning of the production and commercialization of the products that have the orange as raw material.

The statistical method used in the census and in the crop forecast of Fundecitrus has never been done before. It is the result of a combination of what was best done by the juice industries in their own census and forecasts since 1987. The improvement of the method counted on the advice of the Statistics Department of the State University of São Paulo (UNESP / FCAV), Markestrat and the Economics and Management Department of the University of São Paulo.

One of the measures of governance adopted was the structuring of committees composed by citrus growers, representatives of orange juice companies, lawyers and academics. Throughout the development of this inventory, several meetings were held in which actions, goals and indicators were analyzed with the purpose of proposing technical improvements for the accomplishment of the project activities.

The results of the crop estimate are published every May, with updates in September, December and February, after monitoring the development of the fruits in the orange trees. The crop closes in April, when the size of fruits and the rate of fruit droppage are also released.

See here more information about the beginning of the project and click here to download the inventory in english.

The orange production was the segment that created more jobs in 2016, among all agricultural categories in the state of São Paulo. According to the General Registry of Admitted and Laid-Off Workers (CAGED, in Portuguese), the agency linked to the Ministry of Labor and Employment of Brazil, from January to August 2016, the citriculture had 30,709 admissions. This amount also puts the sector among the 20 main job creators of the state.

The citriculture positive impact in creating jobs is due the extensive use of manpower, specially during the harvest. To show what this means, just take a look at January 2016, there was 47,071 workers at the orange groves in the State of São Paulo. Considering that, according to Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE, in Portuguese), the orange planted area in the state of São Paulo is of 412,861 hectares, it’s possible to see that the citriculture employs one worker every nine hectares. Just for comparison, the same calculation made with sugar cane shows that the activity creates one job every 80 hectares. Which means, one hectare of orange creates nine more jobs than one hectare of sugar cane.

The impact of orange in job creation is so great that from the 10 municipalities of São Paulo with the higher number of admissions in agriculture, listed by CAGED, seven are considered citrus hub, as it is with the first three places: Bebedouro, Matão and Mogi Guaçu. In these towns, the citriculture participation in creating agricultural jobs is of 24%, 23% and 65%, respectively. In towns like Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo, this percentage it’s up to 66%.

The numbers are meaningful, specially when considering the job crisis in Brazil. According to the Ministry of Labor and Employment, the month of September was the 18^th straight month of closing formal jobs. In other words, in the past year and a half, there was more layoffs than hiring in the Brazilian economy. This way, the citriculture’ profile as a job-creating activity has a significant impact in the towns where it’s present.

Around the Brazilian citrus activity was built an important technological park, which in the last few years has generated a series of knowledge on varieties, ways of planting, sanitary control, and several other essential points for the sustainability of this agricultural activity. One of the center of excellence in research focused on citrus is the Sylvio Moreira Citrus Center, linked to the Agronomic Institute of Campinas (IAC), an agency linked to the Secretariat of Agriculture of the state of São Paulo.

Founded in 1928, the center is located in a 70.2 hectares area and has 63 researchers. Among the main lines of scientific and technological research for the citrus industry are production and supply of seeds, buds, seedlings and genetic arrays, diagnoses of citrus pathogens, quality analysis of fruits, among others.

Besides working on a series of studies and researches, the Center works as an important information spreader, offering a series of free courses during the year. One of the most wanted is a citrus diseases course, which offers a series of lectures with some of the main experts in the country on a number of illnesses that strike the groves.

The Center also works as a kind of meeting point of the Brazilian citrus chain. After all, every year it is the host of one of the most traditional citrus events in the country, the Citrus Week. The event gathers different sector’s segment during a week to debate the paths of the citrus activity and to multiply the knowledge around the citrus production.

A research conducted in partnership with Brazilian and American scientists might create a powerful weapon against citrus greening, one of the main diseases affecting orange groves in the largest producing regions of the fruit in the world. The study conducted by Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa, in Portuguese) and the Agricultural Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA/ARS), identified a gene called Met-1, which belongs to the tiny insect called psyllid, responsible for transmitting the disease.  Now, the idea is to use a technique known as RNA interference (RNAi) to isolate this gene and use it against the mosquito.

In laboratory tests, more than 80% of the psyllids that fed with plants containing identical RNAs to the Met-1 gene, have died. As it was with Met-1, other two dozen genes were tested, but it had the highest insect mortality rate. The aim of this study is to develop strategies of disease control, fighting psyllids and harmless to other living beings and the environment.

The RNAi is one of the most recent biotechnology tools and it has the advantage to strike its target with great precision because it’s based on the genetic code of the target organism. “We can say that RNAi has a surgical precision because it allows us to affect specifically the target gene only in the organism of interest”, says Mr. Eduardo Chumbinho de Andrade, researcher of the Embrapa Labex-USA Program, who conducted the research in partnership with Mr. Wayne Hunter, researcher of ARS – Horticultural Research Laboratory USDA, in Fort Pierce, Florida.

“The identification of the Met-1 gene and the advances in technology development is a good example of the results reached by the Embrapa Labex Program when putting Brazilian talents in contact with their fellow colleagues and institutions in other countries working with cutting edge research”, highlights the coordinator of Scientific Cooperation of the Secretariat of International Affairs (SRI, in Portuguese) of Embrapa, Mr. Alexandre Morais do Amaral.

For more information on the research, in Portuguese, on the website: https://www.embrapa.br/web/mobile/noticias/-/noticia/15057104/brasil-e-estados-unidos-identificam-gene-para-combate-ao-hlb-dos-citros

Aiming to increase the control and monitoring of Brazilian forests and other vegetation, farmers and growers all over Brazil will have until December 31st, 2017, to register in the Rural Environmental Registry (CAR, in Portuguese). Created by Federal Law 12,651/12, CAR is an electronic registration, mandatory to all private rural properties, creating a strategic database for control, monitoring and combating deforestation and degradation of other native vegetation in Brazil, as well as environmental and economic planning in rural regions. According to data from the Brazilian Ministry of Environment, in the whole country, the registering area is of around 397.8 million hectares, 96.4% of this total has already been registered. In the state of São Paulo, where is the main orange producer region in the country, the registration was done in 100% of the registering area, estimated in 16.9 million hectares.

As from 2017, those who haven’t been registered in CAR will have their line of credit suspended. But even before the deadline, there’s already some losses to those who haven’t regularize their situation. That is because there are banks and companies which are giving benefits to those updated to the regulation. “Caixa Econômica Federal, the Federal Savings Bank, has already made CAR a mandatory item in the risk analysis”, says the director-general of the Brazilian Forest Service, an agency linked to the Brazilian Ministry of Environment, Mr. Raimundo Deusdará Filho.

According to the Brazilian Federation of Banks (Febraban, in Portuguese), the financial institutions are not yet blocking credit for those not in CAR, but the registration is an “extra point” to those seeking credit. “The insurance companies are lowering the haircut to those registered in CAR. If you don’t have CAR, you will pay a little more on insurance. These market mechanisms, even more that the regulatory State, will make CAR happen”, guarantees Mr. Deusdará.

The registration is free and mandatory to all rural properties. All process is made through an online program and it’s only necessary that the owner has all his documents in order to finish their registration. “The tool was developed so that everyone can fill out their information by themselves. But in São Paulo, there are some City Halls and vocational-technical schools offering available technicians to help anyone who needs it”, explains Mr. Deusdará.

For more information on CAR, in Portuguese, access the website: http://www.florestal.gov.br/cadastro-ambiental-rural/numeros-do-cadastro-ambiental-rural

The Brazilian government, through the Ministry of Agriculture, announced the return of the Committee on Sustainable Development of Agribusiness (CDSA, in Portuguese) of the Brazilian Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Food Supply (MAPA, in Portuguese). The goal is to propose innovation on public policy towards sustainability in the countryside and stand out successful projects in this segment. “Brazil is making great strides in its environmental policy, however it still needs to find the resources to make it feasible for the rural properties. The more modern environmental NGOs are forming important alliances with farmers, companies and the financial sector in order to seek innovative solutions in this regard”, explained the special advisor on environment and sustainability of MAPA, Mr. João Campari.

The committee will also follow all demands in MAPA related to environment and sustainability in livestock activity themes, analyzing, making referrals and assisting congressmen to make decisions.

CDSA is directly under the Executive Secretariat of the Ministry (the coordinator of CDSA) and will count on the participation of the National Company of Supplying (Conab, in Portuguese) and the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa, in Portuguese).  Besides other agencies in MAPA, the CDSA will seek partnerships with other Ministries, the private sector and NGOs.

You can check the regulation, in Portuguese, at the website http://pesquisa.in.gov.br/imprensa/jsp/visualiza/index.jsp?jornal=1&pagina=5&data=05/09/2016