For our first day in Lucas do Rio Verde, we had an early start and visited the Maggi Soybean Crushing Plant.  This company has 40,000 hectares of cropland and 41 warehouses. Between all of their facilities, they have a capacity of 2.6 million tons of storage. We learned all about their conversion process of soybeans to oil and how they extract and use all of the byproducts of this production.  Anything that does not turn into oil gets converted into feed for livestock because of the high protein content.

For our second stop of the day, we went to a John Deere dealer that is a part of the Agro Baggio group. Here we first had a presentation from the store manager who talked about John Deere's business in Brazil. We learned that over the past five years almost all of their product lines have tripled in sales and that Deere is highly committed to Brazil. In the past, Brazil would receive new equipment and new technology about 5 years behind the US, but now Brazil is receiving the newest models right when they are released in the US.  The manager also told us how the demand for equipment has been growing over the past few years. This can be explained by the shortage and the cost of physical labor. With more machines, farms are able to do more work per employee and lower the overall cost of production.  Another trend in the Brazilian market is purchasing larger machines. Even though not all of Deere's largest machines are produced in Brazil, some farmers are still willing to pay for equipment made outside of the country.

For our last visit of the day, we went to Braganca Farm & Feedlot. Upon arrival we took off our John Deere hats and replaced them with hats that were provided for us by Tortuga, the animal nutrition company affiliated with Braganca's livestock. We then had a short presentation about the farm's feedlot and growing capabilities. They had 9,000 hectares of farmland and capacity for 13,000 cattle.  When the cattle are brought to slaughter, they have an average weight of 461kg. The cattle get to this weight by gaining an average of 1.75kg per day and are kept for 22-24 months.  Last year the cattle sold for R$5.90 per kilogram, which was more than double the cost per each kilogram gained (R$2.35).

After the tour we hopped back in the bus and continued to tour their farm and facilities.  We first stopped at their storage area, and then we went out in their corn field to see some of their  ~21,000 acres crops being harvested. We only saw one combine out in the field, but they decided to take us to their equipment storage area where we discovered that they own 22 John Deere combines.  This is a lot of combines for the amount of land that they farm, but they are needed because their window of opportunity to harvest is extremely short.

After our whirlwind tour of the Braganca Farm, we headed back to the hotel and later enjoyed a very Brazilian-style pizza dinner in Lucas.  Lots of meat and cheese, as you can imagine, but we really enjoyed it!  Especially the cinnamon banana dessert pizza!

For more photos, click here!