Amazon rainforest deforestation affects rainy season in Brazil and harms farmers; soybean and corn production are the most affected

A survey by two researchers from the Federal University of Viçosa, Minas Gerais, and one from the University of California, United States, and published by the Royal Meteorological Society points out that large-scale replacement of the Amazon rainforest by pasture or planting areas is reducing rainfall in regions such as the Brazilian Midwest.

Between 1998 and 2002, the rainy season in the region, comprising Rondônia, southern Amazonas, northern Mato Grosso, and southern Pará, was shortened by 27 days. This has a huge impact on the Brazilian double-crop, in some cases practically making the second harvest impossible. In Brazil, farmers plant soybeans and then corn on the same ground. Without the rain, planting corn after soybean harvesting is practically unfeasible.

According to consultancy AgRural, in 2019, the ideal planting period (window) for the Brazilian corn crop in 2020 should be shorter, as the irregularity of rainfall in recent weeks has caused soybean sowing to be delayed by several parts of the South Central States of the Country.

Brazil continues to burn: on the day Twitter is overtaken by the , #ClimateStrike movement (#GreveGlobalPeloClima), part of Brazil suffers from the burning and another part from the massive arrival of smoke

Satellite images from Brazil's National Institute for Space Research (Inpe) show that the smoke from our Bolivian neighbors and from states like Mato Grosso and Mato Grosso do Sul has been covering São Paulo and Paraná cities since yesterday.

The thousands of fire and burn outbreaks that hit the Amazon region and the Cerrado produced a high concentration of carbon monoxide (CO) in the air of São Paulo and Paraná. This had already happened in August in Sao Paulo when the day was night due to the smoke.

In recent days, images of fire whirlwinds in Goiás have taken over social media in Brazil. Residents of several counties in this state have had to rush out of schools and workplaces because of the frightening advances of the fire.

The worldwide demonstrations scheduled for today want to alert the authorities to the current climate emergency facing the world. In Brazil, the protests will be against the policy of socio-environmental setbacks openly practiced by the current federal government.

Yesterday, in the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies, the Climate Coalition activists announced that the environmental movement in the country intends to claim 15 measures for the federal government, among them the application of resources foreseen for the Climate Fund, the Amazon Fund, the Environmental Compensation and the conversion of fines. According to the manifesto released by the group, by 2050 there will be 200 million climate refugees in the world.

The Coalition is made up of institutions such as Greenpeace, the Brazilian Indigenous Peoples Association (Apib), Fight for the Forest, Families for the Climate, Socio-Environmental Tide and political parties opposed to the government of Jair Bolsonaro.

UN vetoed Brazil's speech at the New York climate summit, according to Folha de S.Paulo's Ambiência blog

According to journalist Ana Carolina Amaral, Brazil "is not on the list of countries that will speak at the UN climate summit next Monday (23.10.2019) in New York."

The blog said UN Secretary-General Luis Alfonso de Alba said: "Brazil has not put forward any plans to increase its commitment to the climate."

To make matters worse for Brazil on the international stage, today a group of 230 investment funds, which together manage 16 trillion dollars, issued a joint statement urging Brazil to take effective measures to protect the Amazon rainforest against increasing deforestation.

According to the text, the process of destruction of the Amazon rainforest may have an impact on the fund portfolios. This could be exactly what Bolsonaro government and the agribusiness lobby in Brasilia most fear.

The current Brazilian government is turning the country into a kind of international pariah. The veto of Brazil's speech at the UN climate summit is severe and could greatly damage Brazil's exports and economy.

IBGE indicates that Brazil should have a record harvest of 239.8 million tons in 2019

According to the IBGE Systematic Survey on Agricultural Production, the August estimate for the 2019 crop points to a new record in grain production in Brazil. If the forecast of 239.8 million tons of grain is confirmed, it will exceed by 1.4 million tons the record obtained for the 2017 harvest. In 2018, production was 226.5 million tons.

The expectation of a larger harvest of second-crop corn increased the forecast for the national grain crop in 2019.

Brazil is expected to produce 7.2 million tonnes of winter cereals this year, with 80.8% of this total wheat (5.8 million tonnes). Oats account for 13.7% (985.6 thousand tons), and barley 5.5% (391.6 thousand tons).

According to Inpe, Brazil today has over 100,000 outbreaks of fire

Brazil has exceeded 100,000 outbreaks of fire, according to Inpe. In the municipality of Chapada dos Guimarães, army firefighters, brigade members, and military combat three major fires. One of them, inside the National Park.

A survey by the Acre Environment Secretariat in partnership with the Federal University of Acre (Ufac) Gamma Laboratory reports that the state in northern Brazil, in the Amazon region, had more than 27,000 hectares of degraded areas this year with burned.

Between January and August 2019 alone, more than 46,000 outbreaks of fires were recorded in the Amazon, an increase of over 100% over the same period in 2018.

The wave of out-of-control fires is not restricted to Brazil. In Paraguay, the fires produced destruction and a smokescreen that covered the Brazilian city of Ponta Pora. Today there are at least 2,580 fire outbreaks in various regions of Paraguay, 150 km from the Brazilian border.

Know which state companies the current Brazilian government intends to privatize

According to the website Poder360, the current Brazilian government announces the list of companies that it intends to privatize to strengthen the federal cash and reduce the public deficit. The companies are:

1. Emgea (Empresa Gestora de Ativos);
2. ABGF (Agência Brasileira Gestora de Fundos Garantidores e Garantias);
3. Serpro (Serviço Federal de Processamento de Dados);
4. Dataprev (Empresa de Tecnologia e Informações da Previdência Social);
5. Casa da Moeda;
6. Ceagesp (Companhia de Entrepostos e Armazéns Gerais de São Paulo);
7. Ceasaminas (Centrais de Abastecimento de Minas Gerais);
8. CBTU (Companhia Brasileira de Trens Urbanos);
9. Trensurb (Empresa de Trens Urbanos de Porto Alegre S.A.);
10. Codesa (Companhia Docas do Espírito Santo);
11. EBC (Empresa Brasil de Comunicação);
12. Ceitec (Centro de Excelência em Tecnologia Eletrônica Avançada);
13. Telebras
14. Correios
15. Eletrobras
16. Lotex (Loteria Instantânea Exclusiva);
17. Codesp (Companhia Docas do Estado de São Paulo).

The government of Jair Bolsonaro, therefore, intends to sell assets to cover a deficit such as social security. In fact, this means giving up capital to pay current expenses. Privatizing to clean up public accounts is a mistake.

However, privatization is currently a necessity as the Brazilian state has no money to make investments, which is being consumed by current spending.

If privatizations were aimed at a national development project debated and agreed between the government and the population, privatization would not be a problem, but in Brazil, the issue is that privatization is often done without a clear definition of the role of capital. foreign capital, the national capital and state capital in the economy of the country. Privatizations are always done in a crisis environment, where the country loses much of its negotiating capacity and ends up selling assets below or their real value or without the guarantees necessary for the agreement to work.

Eletropaulo, for example, a power distribution company serving the metropolitan region of São Paulo, has already been sold twice, first to the US group AES, and then to the Italian Enel. In the first privatization, the US company, to increase productivity, cut costs that eventually hurt the company. Of the 27,000 employees, only 4,000 remained. This has reduced the company's ability to do network maintenance work, thereby harming the population using the service.

Paraguayan political crisis involving the Brazilian government leads to impeachment request against Paraguayan President Mario Abdo

The energy produced by Itaipu's hydroelectric power plant, which is binational, that is, a state-owned by Brazil and Paraguay, is producing a serious political crisis in Paraguay. 

Paraguayan newspaper ABC Color published alleged private messages from the president of Paraguay Mario Abdo in which he allegedly pressured then Ande (Paraguayan energy state) president Pedro Ferreira for the implementation of the agreement signed in diplomatic minutes on May 24, following pressure from the government of Jair Bolsonaro. 

The point is that if this agreement were followed by Ande it would raise the energy bill for consumers in Paraguay. Therefore, President Abdo would be participating in a negotiation that harmed the population of his country.

The president of Paraguay knew all about the deal with Brazil that was damaging his country if his WhatsApp talks with the director of the Paraguayan energy company obtained by reporter Mabel Rehnfeldt of the ABC Color newspaper are true.

This stance would lead to damage to the Paraguayan government, mainly because ABC's dialogues show that the Paraguayan president knew the terms of the agreement in advance, was aware that he would increase the cost of energy in Paraguay and advised that everything should be kept confidential.

The case prompted the opposition in Paraguay to file an impeachment request against Paraguayan President Mario Abdo.

According to the ABC Color newspaper, then-Paraguayan ambassador to Brasilia, Hugo Saguier, was summoned to a meeting at the Brazilian federal government headquarters in which he was informed that the Brazilian government was dissatisfied with the non-compliance with the agreement by the Paraguayan state company, Ande.

UN hunger fight projects resources halted due to lack of approval from the Brazilian Ministry of Economy; Fight against hunger in Brazil suffers from the government of a president who insists that this problem does not exist or is very small in the country

Brazil has over 45 million dollars in hunger-fighting projects that are stalled. These resources could finance projects through the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the UN agency to fight rural poverty and hunger. Investments, however, have not been halted since 2018 due to lack of approval by the foreign finance commission of the Ministry of Economy led by Paulo Guedes.

The main difficulty in allowing the release is the Union's inability to repay, which cannot be a guarantor of loans.

On July 19, at a coffee shop with international correspondents in Brasilia, President Jair Bolsonaro said that Brazil did not suffer from the problem of hunger. On the same day, Brazil's president's statement on hunger in the country was rebutted by data and experts.

In this coffee, with the journalists, Bolsonaro said: "Talking about starving in Brazil is a big lie". Later that day, pressured by the flood of criticism he received inside and outside the country, Bolsonaro turned back and said only a "small part" of the population suffered from hunger. In fact, more than 5 million people suffer from the scourge of hunger in Brazil.

However, the UN Food and Nutrition Security Outlook Panorama Report 2018, released in November by the UN, showed the rise in hunger in Brazil. The study estimated that malnutrition reached up to 5.2 million Brazilians between 2015 and 2017, compared to the 5.1 million estimated for the three years 2014-2016 and 2013-2015. In the 2000-2002 triennium, 18.8 million Brazilians suffered from hunger. 

This meaningless debate started by the president is a catastrophe for the hunger control programs in Brazil. Meanwhile, other less urgent projects are being tabled by this government, for example the decree to facilitate gun possession or the project that eliminates fines for transporting children without car seats or starting studies to include the terms "father" and "mother" rather than "parents" in the fields intended for membership in the Brazilian passport documentation.

Meanwhile, major resources for fighting hunger in the countryside have been stalled since 2018 because the country has not paid back a loan to the Union.

This indicates that the current government does not know what the country's real priorities are and continues to spend time and resources on debates that are completely innocuous.

Bolsonaro's idea of creating a single currency for Brazil and Argentina is harshly criticized by economists

In his visit to Argentina, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro said that he and the Brazilian Economy Minister, Paulo Guedes, are starting the debate on the achievement of the "dream of a single currency in the Mercosur region, the real peso".

Bolsonaro's speech, which occurred last Friday (07.Jun.2019), was widely criticized in Brazil. The president of the Chamber of Deputies, Rodrigo Maia, has published in his Twitter account: "Is it? Will it devalue the real? Will the dollar end up worth R $ 6.00? Coming back inflation? Hope not".

Gustavo Franco, former president of the Brazilian Central Bank and one of the parents of the Real Plan, criticized the idea of creating a single currency between Brazil and Argentina. According to Thomaz Favaro, the Latin American director of Control Risks, the 'real peso' would bring exchange problems from Argentina to Brazil

Economic journalist Miriam Leitão was quoted as saying: "The possibility of a monetary union between Brazil and Argentina is none." For her, the countries are very different. According to Míriam Leitão, "Brazil has US$ 380 billion in reserves and balanced external accounts, Argentina depends on IMF loans to meet its exchange rate commitments. They have 55% inflation and we are returning to 4%."

The idea defended by Bolsonaro and Guedes also became the target of dozens of memes on the internet. Some people have even argued that the name of the new currency should be "surreal".

Brazil murder rate is one of the biggest in the world in absolute terms

Brazil had 65,600 murders in 2017, reveals Atlas of Violence by Ipea and the Brazilian Forum of Public Security. The survey considers records of the Mortality Information System, produced by the Ministry of Health.

The report warns of violence against youth, blacks, women and the LGBTI + population.

75% of homicide victims in Brazil in 2017 were black, according to the Atlas of Violence. Within a decade (from 2007 to 2017), the rate of blacks murdered rose by 33.1%. The murder was also the cause of half of the deaths of young people in Brazil in 2017.

This was the first time the Atlas of Violence included statistics on violence against the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, transvestite and intersex population.

Another report produced by the Indian Missionary Council (CIMI) analyzed in 2018 data for the year 2017. The CIMI report also showed an increase in violence against indigenous peoples in Brazil. In cases of indigenous murder, the year 2017 registered 110 cases.

Brazil is also a country where there is a lot of violence against journalists. In 2018, the index increased by 36%, according to a report by the National Federation of Journalists (Fenaj). According to a survey, 227 journalists were verbally or physically attacked. 64 journalists were killed in their practice in Brazil between 1995 and 2018, according to a report by the Public Prosecutor's Office.

According to the magazine Superinteressante, Brazil has had more homicides than all of these countries in 2015: USA, Canada, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, China, Mongolia, Malaysia, Indonesia, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Austria, Hungary, Belarus, Ukraine, Romania, Moldova, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Albania, Greece and Macedonia.

Brazilian cities register new demonstrations against cuts in education by Bolsonaro government

Thousands of people, mainly students, and teachers from public and private schools, returned to the streets today (30.May.2019) in all regions of Brazil. This is the second major protest against the blockades in education funding promoted by the administration of President Jair Bolsonaro.

The demonstrations take place only a few days after large demonstrations in favor of the Bolsonaro government, which took place last Sunday (26.May.2019). Among Brazilian political analysts, the perception grows that the country is moving towards an ever greater political division.

Morgan Stanley is interested in acting more in Brazil

Morgan Stanley wants to expand its business in Brazil. To this end, it is eyeing in part the structured loan market – for these transactions, the bank targets loans that can range from $ 50 million to $ 250 million. Another objective of the institution will be to bring products offered by the bank in other countries to Brazil. The strategy will also increase the participation of Brazilians in its offshore platform. Caixa Econômica Federal has also chosen Morgan Stanley as a co-advisor to select his insurance partners.

Morgan Stanley, by assuming the position of insurance partner, will be entitled to sell policies for 20 years to Caixa's 93 million customers in its network of more than 4,000 branches.

More than 5 million people have been looking for a job in Brazil for over a year according to IBGE

According to figures announced in the last hours by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), 5.2 million unemployed have been seeking employment for more than a year in Brazil. These citizens represent 38.9% of the total unemployed in Brazil. Another 3.3 million people have been unemployed for two years or more (24.8%), up 9.8% over the first quarter of 2018. In addition, 6 million people are in the line of unemployment for more from one month to less than one year (45.4%), and 2.1 million have been seeking employment for less than a month. The number of unemployed in the country rose to 13.4 million in the first quarter of 2019 in Brazil.

According to the IBGE, unemployment increased in 14 of the 27 units of the federation in the first quarter. The largest women affected by this problem were women. While unemployment averaged 12.7% in the country, among women the rate was 14.9%. Among men, it was 10.9%. According to the survey, women were the majority in the working-age population in Brazil (52.4%), but they were also the largest (52.6%) of the unemployed population.

Brazilian millionaires flee the country

A survey by AfrAsia Bank in partnership with the New World Wealth consultancy pointed out that 1% of Brazilians with more than one million dollars in account left the country in 2018. The reasons for the exodus include concerns about security and economy, as well as search for higher quality education and better professional opportunities. Approximately two thousand millionaires left Brazil in 2018.

In 2019, Australia was the country that received the most immigrant millionaires, were 12 thousand in total.

The richest people in the world are also the most mobile. High-net-worth individuals (HNWIs) – people with wealth in excess of $ 1 million – may decide to migrate and change for a variety of reasons.

In some cases, they are attracted to jurisdictions with more favorable tax laws or criminality, as is the case with Brazilian millionaires.

Datagro announces forecast of Brazilian soybean production for 2018/2019 lower than that of 2017/2018

Datagro has raised its soybean production estimate in Brazil in 2018/2019 to 115 million tons. The volume is 6% below the total of 122.3 million tons of the record harvest harvested in 2017/2018.

Datagro also forecasts productivity of 3,205 kilograms per hectare in this harvest, 8% below the 3,470 kg/ha of the 2017/2018 harvest.

Brazil leaves the list of A.T. Kearney of more reliable countries for foreign investment

The ranking of consultancy A.T. Kearney, which lists the 25 most reliable countries for investments, removed Brazil from this group of countries.

The list was created in 1998 and since its creation, Brazil was among the countries listed as more reliable for foreign investment.

The ranking is based on surveys of 500 executives from leading companies worldwide. Now, China, India, and Mexico are the only emerging countries in the ranking.

The Brazilian economy has one of the smallest growths on the planet

A study made by the Brazilian Institute of Economics of the Getúlio Vargas Foundation (Ibre/FGV) points out that, between 2011 and 2020, the expansion of the Brazilian economy should only surpass that of 18 countries among the 191 monitored by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

According to the IMF, Brazil is expected to grow about 0.9% between 2011 to 2020, an estimate lower than the expected average in Latin America (1.7%) and global emerging economies (4.9%).

Unpredictability stalls Brazil's growth, whose GDP grew by 1.1% in 2018 and is expected to grow by less than 1.5% by 2019.

Four years ago, in April 2015, the IMF released some very pessimistic forecasts for Brazil for the decade 2011-2020, pointing to average growth of only 1.8% per year in the period. Today, we know today that these forecasts were extremely optimistic: we had two years of GDP fall of 3.5% and the peak of inflation in double digits. Worse, the average annual growth in the decade should run a frightening 0.8%, setting the second decade lost in a generation.

According to the economist Roberto Dumas, from the economic point of view, the 1980s in Brazil were called the "lost decade" due to a rampant inflationary process, public accounts in total uncontrolled, contracting with the International Monetary Fund ), as well as a strong devaluation of the currency due to ill-prepared economic plans.

Debt and unemployment hit young Brazilians

According to SPC Serasa, 4 out of every 10 young Brazilians have a debt that has already won and has not been paid. Unemployment is the main reason for the very high level of indebtedness among young Brazilians. According to the website Poder360, the unemployment rate among young Brazilians is 30%.

This same survey carried out by SPC Serasa pointed out that at least one in four Brazilians who bought with credit cards entered the revolving credit in February 2019, a month in which the average annual interest rate charged by this modality loan was in 286.9% per year in Brazil.

The high level of unemployment among young Brazilians and the inexistence of other cheaper lines of credit ends up pushing a multitude of young people to one of the most expensive loan modalities in the world.

This is the scenario for a country with 27.9 million unemployed/underemployed, 63 million defaulters and whose banks charge the highest spreads in the civilized world. The current government, and also the previous government, does nothing to change the situation. On the contrary, it uses the Central Bank to impose norms capable of reducing the performance of the Fintechs. An example of this is the Resolution 4.658 of the National Monetary Council. This rule makes it more difficult to comply with the technical, legal and economic adjustments imposed by National Monetary Council (CMN) Resolution 4.658, which, in turn, diminishes the capacity of the Fintechs and reduces the supply of credit in the country.

Goldman Sachs warns about Brazil's industrial scenario

After the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) pointed to a drop of 1.3% in March 2019 in Brazilian industrial production, Goldman Sachs warned that the economic crisis that currently affects Argentina may impact negatively the Brazilian industrial production.

As reported in the Poder360 website, Argentina is Brazil's third largest trading partner. According to data from Brazil's Ministry of Industry, Foreign Trade and Services (MDIC), between January and March 2019, the value of exports to Argentina totaled US$ 2.34 billion.

Therefore, the Brazilian Industry must be impacted by the Argentine economic crisis. In addition to undermining Brazilian exports and industry, the Argentine situation serves as a warning for the country, said Alberto Ramos, the chief economist for Goldman Sachs in Latin America.

For Ramos, since the end of Dilma Rousseff's first term in Brazil, there has been a need to make a fiscal adjustment.

Brazilian industry lost the first quarter of 2019

Industrial production fell 1.3% in March 2019 compared to February 2019, in the seasonally adjusted series, the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) announced today. Overall, Brazilian industry shrank -2.2% and the first quarter of 2019 closed negative.

Still, in March of 2019, the level of industrial production was 17.6% below the peak of the historical series of the IBGE, which was registered in May 2011, during the Dilma Rousseff government.

To make matters worse, industrial production fell by 6.1% compared to March 2018. The percentage of Brazilian households with debt (in arrears or not) reached 62.4% in March 2019. The index is higher than 61, 5% from February 2019 and 61.2% from March 2018. This scenario of low economic activity in the country greatly limits the companies' indebtedness capacity.