After driving all night Thursday night we at breakfast at a bakery in Campo Grande before we visited Embrapa’s Beef Cattle National Research Center where we heard about beef cattle research and the research they are doing on the insects and diseases affecting the grasses of the region. We then were shown their laboratories and test plots. This center would be compared to OARDC.
In the afternoon we traveled to Project PACU, which was a gorgeous facility. It was a family fish farm that started from a man’s interest in fishing and having his own pond to a 3,000 hector farm. You can do the conversion to acres so you can be in awe like us. They predominately produce fingerings for the industry now, consult and do research. They started when fish farming was new and basically started the industry in Brazil. The country looks to them for a vigorous product, research assistance and supplies.
I found the place to relax!! In the hut, beside the waterfall, surrounded by the pond, watching the dogs chase the flies and fishing now and then. The pictures will never do this place justice. We spent the night in Campo Grande.
Saturday morning we checked out of the hotel early and left for Sidrolandia where we visited a fish, cotton, soybean and corn farm. It was even larger than the fish farm on Friday. They bought their fingerings from PACU, fed them out and sent them back to PACU who marketed them for 5% of the cost. The fish were huge!! The students were able to see cotton and soybeans fields where that was all you could see to the horizon in any direction. Amazing!! The crops were so lush. They learned about cotton production and saw the huge pieces of Case and John Deere equipment that were needed to plant and harvest the crops. It is difficult for the students to even imagine owning that much land let alone producing a product too.
Then we had lunch at Henrique’s Aunt and Uncle’s home. Henrique’s aunt prepared the meal for us and it was so nice to have a home cooked meal. The food was delicious!! We also enjoyed all the fruit they grew in their yard. They had lime, lemon, orange, star fruit, guava, asceola, mango trees and pineapple plants. Everyone is just so friendly and welcoming to us.
We then headed to a silk worm farm. It is a federally funded project. The family applied for a grant where they had to demonstrate that they could earn enough money to sustain their family in order to receive the grant. They had six tables in a greenhouse like structure. Each table produced 36,000 silk worms which produced 50 kilos of silk a month and they get paid 8.00 a kilo. It’s a 28 day cycle from worm to cocoon. When the silkworms are eating they feed them blueberry branches every two hours. We were able to see two tables of worms and then they had samples of the cocoons so we could see where the silk came from. It was an extremely interesting visit. We then traveled to Aquidauana and checked into the hotel.
Sunday was an interesting day. We traveled to Corumbia/MS via Transpantaneira Road which was a very narrow dirt road with very primitive bridges that took us through a National Preserve. It was 140 kilometers, which I think is about 90 miles. We were able to see alligators, hawks, eagles, owls, iguana, kapybarrow, the tuiuiu bird which is the national bird of the Pantanel, all kinds of trees, flowers and other vegetation.
We then got to the end of the road, boarded a ferry (bus and all) across the Miranda River and traveled a little bit further to Corumbia and then boarded a boat to travel the Paraguay River for a couple of hours. We ate on the boat, relaxed, soaked up the sun until we ran into a storm, listened to live music while a few talents appeared amongst the group. After the great boat ride we arrived at the hotel where we went swimming and then out to dinner for pizza.
Tuesday, we slept in and boarded the bus at 8:30 am. We drove to Miranda/MS to the San Francisco Farm which was even bigger yet, 14,200 hectors. Can you imagine???? We had a nice lunch and then learned about their beef breeding program from their veterinarian and about their rice production system from the farm manager before going out to see the actual farms. We visited the beef farm first and they used mostly horses to round up the cattle. They were crossing Simmental and Swiss and Simmental and Senepol. They have created a purebred program with these original crosses. Then we saw the rice fields and equipment which was quite interesting. They were using water from the Miranda River to germinate and irrigate the seeds and they had their own processing, drying and storing system on site. We were able to see the rice in the field before it is processed, fields that had been harvested and then the actual seed at the processing plant. As a side note the temperature today was 36 degrees Celsius. It has been hot these last few days.
I will close for now as it is dark out and I am typing by light on the bus. One last note, we arrived at the hotel at 2:00 am. It was a very long day.
No comments:
Post a Comment