Big harvester and sprayer!
The John Deere visit was really great, but no photos were allowed. We were able to hear from Leo about working across cultures and different Englishes (he had Australians last week). John Deere does a lot of business in Brazil making sugar cane harvesters and the equipment we are used to in Ohio. He indicated that because the economy is unpredictable, sales are down. Sugar cane made a lot of money last year, but since the farmers can’t know how much they’ll make in the future, they are hanging onto their money.
The plant was very high tech with a lot of machinery laser cutting sheets of metal for parts and welding them together. They were also expanding the plant to incorporate a more high tech painting system. At this point they are only making 5 sugar cane harvesters a day and 10 or so sprayers. The seasons are complementary so they switch some people seasonally. You don’t really realize how big the equipment is until you try to get a group photo! Wow!
Safety and Rain Gear
Pioneer turned out to be an interesting visit, both for the seeds and the rain. It was a constant downpour! They were nice enough to give us special long raincoats, one size fits most…
We saw the lab where they take a sample of seeds to test them for harvesting and bug damage as well as other issues that make them less viable as seeds. Those beans are sent to the elevator to be in feed or other uses. The good seeds are cleaned, dried, and sorted by size. They have a huge capacity for processing, some say it is the largest Pioneer facility in the world. We saw them load 12 two ton bags while watching for about 15 minutes. The warehouse was pretty empty as they only had a few late season seeds for the northern most parts of Brazil. This season’s harvest had just started in the central region. The capacity was immense!
After Pioneer we headed to a Chopperia, a craft beer brewery. It was an interesting story of two brothers who were tired of their jobs and opened a brewery. They get their barley from Argentina and hops from Germany. The brews were very sweet, but good for a hot Brazilian day. We also got to see the Fava family again as they came to tour with us!
That night students went out with the younger generation of Favas and had a great time! They are an amazing family that was more hospitable than anyone could have imagined! The students really wanted to stay an extra day and take them up on their offer to take us pontooning. We hope to see Bruno and Mom at the Quarter Horse Congress in October! We’d love to return the hospitality!