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Part
01
Hay Market Research: Brazil, Part 1
There is little data available on hay production in Brazil. Alfalfa hay is grown on 40,000 ha of land in Brazil versus 3.7 million ha in Argentina. The available statistics on Brazil's hay market has been populated in the attached spreadsheet.
Brazil's Hay Production and Exports
- "In Brazil, even with great comparative advantages compared to other countries, such as favorable climate, availability of arable land, qualified human resources and new emerging markets, little is known about market statistics (of hay production), but it is believed to be practically null."
- "Alfalfa plantations span only 40,000 hectares, primarily in the southern states of Rio Grande do Sul and Paraná, which is not enough to meet domestic demand. Vast amounts of alfalfa seeds get imported to Brazil from California, USA and Argentina"
- Alfalfa crops are harvested eight to ten times per year. They can potentially yield "20 to 25 tons of dry matter per hectare each year."
- Brazil exports 145.2 tons of "forage products including swedes, mangolds, fodder roots, hay, sainfoin, clover, forage kale, lupines, vetches etc., pelletized or otherwise."
- Top countries that Brazil exported "forage products including swedes, mangolds, fodder roots, hay, sainfoin, clover, forage kale, lupines, vetches etc., pelletized or otherwise" in 2018 were Turkey, Lebanon, Uruguay, Egypt, Iraq, and Norway.
- Brazil has a total of 1,637,459,361 livestock animals.
Research Strategy
We searched the Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatistica, the 2017 Census of Agriculture reports and tables, Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa), the Food and Agricultural Organization, USDA, World Bank, economic databases (Trading Economics), research reports, dairy farming related websites, Brazil-Arab News Agency (ANBA), global animal feed resource databases (feedipedia), World Alfalfa Congress, Agri Links, and media sources for the hay production data in Brazil. However, it was not available in any of the aforementioned sources. The Census of Agriculture reports data for grain forage, cutting forage, cane forage, corn forage, palm forage, and fodder seeds but it does not publish any data for hay. A research report on the forage seed market we came across suggests--only on the basis that it finds mention and other types do not--that Alfalfa is the primary hay type used in Brazil, even though it is produced in low quantities; Alfalfa is grown on nearly 3.7 million ha in Argentina versus 40,000 ha in Brazil. There was also a source that indicated that "little is known" about the hay market in Brazil. Our findings largely suggest that hay is not as widely used as feed for livestock in Brazil in comparison to other countries.