Comments by "serafina costa" (@serafinacosta7118) on "Zeihan on Geopolitics"
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Most of the Brazilian grown wheat is done at the State of Rio Grande do Sul prairies ( except for the Serra Gaúcha region known for its winemaking , it reads as Gaúcha Mountain Range ) , which borders Argentina.
So , in the plains, they are either grazing cattle ( the Hereford European variety mostly ) , or growing cash crops , wheat being one of them.
In the Deep South , most farm land are smaller acreages , comprised by and large of family farms, whose output is sold through agricultural cooperatives.
A lot of those Gaucho families ended up North , and in places such as Mato Groseo, Goiás , and even Northeast. In the central part of Brazil , there is warmer and humid climate, over the cerrado plains. The cash crop of choice is soybeans , for animal feed, food production , and exports.
We get our wheat supply , mostly for domestic consumption , either grown at home , or imported from Argentina and Uruguay. I am not sure what strain is grown in Brazil, but the Southern climate is cold during winters. There are not deep florests there , so air humidity , while not dry, does not hinder traditional wheat harvesting. The cold winters are augumented by a bone cutting windshield , known as “ minuano “.
If you know anything about Brazilian Gauchos is that they can grow anything they want out of scant resources. They are the types that hold down , face the odds, and get most of any land they get their hands on. On the dry Northeast States , plagued by droughts , with plenty Northeast migrant families leaving barren land behind , Gauchos would buy those plots , and before you know they would be harvesting water melons.
And then there is well funded Brazilian research on agricultural and animal research. I am sure , in Rio Grande do Sul , Universidade de Santa Maria does a swell job in turning out quality research and grads. Yet, the most advanced production on research and grads are in places such as ESALQ ( Escola Superior de Agricultura Luís de Queiroz ) , on Piracicaba -SP, and Universidade Federal de Lavras , on the state of Minas Gerais. Those two alone can match or beat any American University with an Agricultural Science Program. Hands down.
So Peter , you are overdue to get your arse in Brazil.
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Not sure if would work in Africa.
It takes plains m seasonal climate , prediction go rain fall, a mesh of roads and rail roads , and those bribe seeking officials at borders would have to go away. Wheat planting and harvesting requires combines , and other specialized agricultural machinery.
It’s not about labor costs. It’s about infra structure , arable land , subsidized interest loan programs , and a low cost of doing business.
You have to overcome a whole litany of issues that are pertinent to different African countries , sometimes with conflicting interests amongst themselves , and that is just before the first seed is ever planted in the ground.
Even with the Chinese dolling out money like there is no tomorrow , they have to have all ducks in the row. And even if the Chinese managed to get people talking to one another , then you have to pray other powers are not spilling discord to sabotage China’s efforts, a dogging problem in Africa over decades.
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This from one living in Brazil for the past ten years…..
Brazil : Hoping to catch some train going somewhere that can be a market for our commodities. Way Before this BRICS became the hype of the moment , we used to trade outside the dollar on a barter system, whenever the chance presented itself. This materialized with Iraq in the early eighties. We took their crude , and then we shipped VW Passats , frozen poultry , and sent engineering firms to build infrastructurethrrd. M
Russia : Bankrupt and irrelevant
India : Our competition. We haven’t trade any significant amounts with them, and likely won’t.
China : Hoping to hijack the dollar to have the world to bankroll their unfinished projects. Since the Renmibi or yuan is worthless outside China , this group formation is probably their best hope to get their agenda going.
South Africa: The Chinese are courting them since Australia soured on them and joined the US. Yet, the US represents a sizeable market for South Africans ( De Boers, Wineries, Tourism ).
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You have to deal with Brazilians to begin with, and coupled with the notorious Brazilian Bureaucracy , it could make it very difficult in opening the floodgates.
They claim to be hospitable , but in many cases they practice just the opposite
It was fashionable to host Ukranians , but they did in limited scale, and local Ukranian Churches did most of the lifting
They done ok , in letting in Syrians and Palestines , due to the heavily based Arab diaspora ( mostly Syrian-Lebanese )
Haitians, Afghans, Venezuelans, Bolivians have bore the brunt of the unwelcoming treatment.
The Chinese just came in, and they are still seen with indiference and resentment by some.
The Koreans made it a long ago, and they are thriving.
The Cuban Doctors brought in by Dilma got turned away by Bolsonaro.
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For Peter , on Brazilian rail. Just for your notes….
The original rail lines implemented were British Engineered , first to date , 1854, inaugurated by D. Pedro II, the very first tracks , Estrada de Ferro Petrópolis, connecting the Rio’s shipping port from Porto Mauá towards Fragoso, and had about under 10 miles.
Fast forward , the first successfully laid tracks ran from the City of Campinas , São Paulo , through Jundiaí ( today still a logistic hub ) , through São Paulo ( Luz Rail Stop , a Victorian British built relic , today a commuter rail and subway transportation hub ) , spearheaded the growth in cities such as Santo André and Sao Caetano ( latter ABC manufacturing hub ) , and descending upon the slopes of Cubatão basin ( Brazil’s second large scale steel mill then financed through government bonds , plus a number of chemical and fertilizer manufacturing plants ) , towards the Santos Sea Shipping port.
Later became known as RFFSA’s Santos-Jundiai. Built and financed by British investors , whose concession was latter , post war , transferred to the Brazilian Federal Government.
Another separate track width was latter built towards Sorocaba’s manufacturing hub ( Toyota eventually built a large assembly plant there many decades past then ). It left another Magnificent rail stop in São Paulo, actually a few single digit miles from São Paulo’s Luz Rail Stop. It was known as Estrada de Ferro Sorocabana.
North end to end destinations were first viable to haul coffee beans , and passenger lines were latter incorporated to these lines. Todays they still haul , through private leases , Orange Juice Concentrate, rolled steel plates , soybean, corn.
On the way towards Sorocaba there is Votorantin , a town that lodged a large scale Cement processing plant , part of an old money conglomerate known as Indústrias Votorantin holding.. The late abd second generation owner , Antonio Ermírio de Moraes became the embodiment of a Brazilian Robber Baron , also a well know Filantropist, whose contributions bankrolled the growth off network non profit Hospitals , the Beneficiencia Portuguesa.
Today’s Brazilian rail is fragmented , some times due to desinvestiment, other times featuring regional growth in regions such as the far north near the Amazon , or by the Cerrado’s hinterlands ( State of Mato Grosso) , through São Paulo and Paraná.
There is much to do to rebuild the entire system , who started failing apart by the late 70’s.
Changing the lines , a good read on Brazilian of late XX century , politics and history , I do recommend Thomas Skidmore’s books. He I’d , or was , a well known Brazilianist.
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Only, in the case of Brazil , most of the soybean crops are grown in the center / southeast regions , specifically Cerrado ( State of Goiás, Mato Grosso , Mato Grosso do Sul ) , Paraná . Very little is coming from the Amazon region , at best from the State of Rondônia . Capillarity in road infrastructure , rail lines , silage, all at minimum, are obstacles to industrial scale in the region.
True , Brazil relies heavily on Fertilizers ,crops like sugar cane, soybeans , corn , eat up over 70% if fertilizer consumption in Brazil. And Fertilizer Provessors do import 23% of fertilizer raw materials from Russia.
On the flip side , water pockets availability overmatches what is available in Continental US, a fact you never bring up.
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On the quasi continental US, geography isn’t even part of the curricula at the public school systems nationwide . The American system has national standards , but funding is highly regionalized , so curricula consistency beyond reading and math is very uneven.
Reading maps , knowing trivia country / Capital , a knowledge infused at home , very seldom is practiced on US households.
That being the ABCs , it then evolves to GEO economics , climate patterns , type of vegetation and all of that is highly individualized knowledge only driven by one’s desire to learn. Geopolitics is the advanced form of this learning curve.
Just don’t feel bad, and ignore the sneering remarks of “ Americans are Geography Iliterate”, mostly spouted or sneered from Europeans.
If only Mr Zeihan’s rise in popularity soars , then American Educators might pay more attention to Geopolitics and start to consider Geography as a standard mandatory curricular subject .
Your admission is a positive step, no less.
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@Leftatalbuquerque
My dear Canadian poster…
My clueless guess about the stretch on arable Canadian land on Canada that does not cut into the Nation of Tribes includes Alberta ( part of it ) , Winnipeg , the heavily agricultural use lands in Atlantic Provinces ( including Saint Edward Islands , New Foundland , and Nova Scotia ) . Not sure about The Pacific Coast, and I plead ignorance about the Canadian Rockies.
Most of those 360 km from the American border are either in Agriculture ( Quebec ) or being claimed to urban sprawl , as 80% of Canada’s population lives there. Parts of Ontario that once held florest, even 40-40 years ago , are grown to be infill urban sprawl. That is Mississauga, Windsor, for sake of an example.
That above amounts to the little I know about Canada , and I stand to be corrected.
Now onto Brazil….
Patches of land that are being razed for illegal logging and cattle ranching are in Amazon , on public land , and yes , that alone spells ecological disasters . One of the menbers of the actual cabinet is blocking oil drilling at the Amazon River basin, against the wishes of Petrobras. Search Marina da Silva. She might look like your garden variety cleaning maid , but she is one though cookie on environmental policies.
The Amazon basin , with its top soil, is not suitable for wheat harvesting. The overwhelming stock of Brazilian cash crops are grown in the following states :
Rio Grande do Sul ( where’s most of our domestic wheat comes from )
Paraná ( what, soybeans , coffee is long gone , corn )
Santa Catarina ( orchards )
São Paulo ( clay soil good for Sugar Cane , orange orchards , other fruits , corn , dairy and other varieties , potatoes , bananas , tea )
Mato Grosso ( North and South ) /Goiás ( beef cattle , soybeans , rice , beans , sorghum )
Minas Gerajs ( Coffee , dairy cattle )
Espírito Santo - tropical fruits
Bahia - tropical fruits , cacau , dendê Oil , coconuts, cashews
The entire Northeast coastal States. Which is sun baked , and a few years ago , growing anything in its hinterlands ( read Sertão and Caatinga ) was a challenge. Now, with ditches at the São Francisco River, local agriculture has grown by leaps and bounds.
The Amazon ( Amazonas, Para , and Maranhão ) is awful , even with built roads. You have issues with logistics , not all roads are paved or are in dire need of reoairs , and then half of the year pours rain every day of the rainy season. Can’t grow any type of wheat variety there , period. Most of the land boat to cities like Manaus and Belem come in by boat, and they bring in native harvested fruit species, nuts ( the Brazilian nut you buy at your grocery store is called Castanha do Pará ) , and fresh water fish you haven’t fathomed to exist )).
May I suggest that your passport ready, book your flight ticket , kiss your dear ones goodbye , budget and plan to spend at least a year crisscrossing the country. Until then , you will have no clue and you are out of your debt. Not your fault. You just need extra polishing.
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For as long as he can read the comments and fact check them to further adjust his predictions , no damage is done. He has made adjustments over his bullish outlook in Argentina in recent past after our collective outcries. After all no one is perfect. Even Nostradamus.
Least of all, we watch him for his broad strokes in subjects he masters , and his narrative comes minced in with hard data we could barely muster to gather in the past. No one besides him broached in these subjects before , so at least we have, free of charge , our daily feeds to nourish our conspiracy theory brains.
And , just as important, we don’t need to be bothered by sponsorship inserts , funding pleas, and for now, , those annoying pop up ads. Let’s just hope he continues to earn his money on keynote speech circuit and books.
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