Brazilian farmers face hotter, drier future

Climate change could decimate crop production in one of the world’s agricultural powerhouses, according to a weather and climate expert.

Kyle Tapley, meteorologist and senior sales manager with Maxar Intelligence, recently put together a case study for how climate change could affect production in Mato Grosso, the top soybean and corn producing state in Brazil.

It produces 29 per cent of the country’s soybeans and 33 per cent of its corn.

The state has historically been blessed with a wet climate and long growing season, but that is slowly changing, due in part to decades of deforestation.

Farmers in Mato Grosso have been converting forest into cropland and pasture.

“That is lowering humidity levels in these areas and then in turn leading to a very slow start to the rainy season,” Tapley said during a recent Agri-Pulse TV webinar.

Over the past several years the state has experienced decreased rainfall in the early part of the rainy season, during the months of September and October.

It looks like that will be the case again in 2024, he said.

Brazil is facing one of the worst droughts on record with more than one-third of the country affected, according to Cemaden, the country’s disaster monitoring centre. Mato Grosso is in the heart of that drought.

“The drought could delay the start of soybean planting, which in turn could push back both the harvest and export timeline,” according to a daily newsletter published by AHDB Cereals & Oilseeds Market Intelligence.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is forecasting a record 169 million tonnes of Brazilian soybean production in 2024-25, a 10 percent increase over last year.

That forecast could be in jeopardy because low prices have capped acreage expansion at the slowest pace in 18 years and the dry spell is threatening yields and quality.

“The extent of the impact of dry weather in Brazil is uncertain at this point, but it is an important area to monitor,” stated the AHDB report.

Tapley’s case study is focused on the long-term outlook for Mato Grosso.

Using Maxar’s ClimateDesk tool, he was able to determine that the state will likely experience an eight percent decline in total rainfall over the next 25 years.

The outlook becomes more alarming when he focuses the forecast on the September-October period, when rainfall is expected to be down 42 percent.

That would lead to long delays in soybean planting, which in turn would push back seeding of the winter (safrinha) corn crop.

It is also getting hotter in Brazil.

“Last season was a huge example of this,” said Tapley.

“It was by far the hottest growing season on record.”

Temperatures in Mato Grosso during the September 2023 through February 2024 period were 5 C above normal.

Above normal temperatures are projected again for this growing season right across Brazil.

Temperatures above 35 C cause crop stress. Mato Grosso typically gets about 50 of those days per year. By 2050 it will be three times that amount, according to the Maxar ClimateDesk tool.

Tapley said the combination of the delayed start to the rainy season and the more than 150 days of 35 C heat will likely result in decreased yields across Brazil’s top corn and soybean producing state.

Brazilian farmers can use that information to help select varieties suited to those conditions, better manage their water supplies and help determine crop rotations.

Grain companies could use the forecast to make investment decisions in that important region of the world.

Tapley said the ClimateDesk tool can make customizable climate-based forecasts for growing regions around the world, noting that they all have different climatic outlooks.

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Tags: crop, forecast, deforestation, droughts, сlimate change, corn, Brazil, soybeans, Production