Searching for the creation of structuring politics for the development of Canola

Read full text in the column of the Chief Executive Officer of BSBIOS published on the site of BiodieselBR.

In December 2010, ABrasCanola (Associação Brasileira dos Produtores de Canola) was founded in Passo Fundo/RS by a group of several entities that have met for four years, encouraged by the work which began to be developed in the North region of Rio Grande do Sul with the installation of a biodiesel production unit of BSBIOS.

This Group named DRS Biofuels (Sustaninable Regional Development) is led by Banco do Brasil together with BSBIOS and includes financing agents, unions, associations, cooperatives, companies, family farmers and rural producers. Besides them, very important bodies for agriculture like Embrapa and Emater also participated. This work has improved in the region with growing membership, and because of the expansion in the area grown with Canola, the Group felt the need of forming a national association which stood for producers and productive sector of Canola crop.

This way, AbrasCanola, which main objective is to spread the vegetable oil in all Brazilian promising states, was founded. That is why, we are searching for more partners, companies, entities and farmers that are linked to the productive sector and which we are going to make contact with so that the Association can be strengthen. It will work with research bodies and Federal and State Government in order to promote the development of this crop as well.

At this moment, we are running the bureaucratic step to form the Association, but we suppose that from March, ABrasCanola will begin to take its first actions. Yet, on March 1st we are going to promote, together with Embrapa, the V Course of Canola Training and Dissemination. It is the fifth consecutive year this activity happens, it was promoted by several companies and entities, and now, ABrasCanola will develop this training.

Yet, in the same day, the Association wishes to deliver a document to the representatives who are invited and who have already confirmed their participation in this important course. Its objective is that the Government can construct a National Program to Encourage the Production and Use of Canola.

As an industry and Association we have our limitations, therefore, we are sure that so that this crop reach a good development, which is our expectation, we need the Federal Government participation, the way it has happened with other crops. I believe these initiatives are very important to Brazilian agriculture. We see the example of incentives that have provided support to the crop of Oil Palm in the North and Castor Bean in the Northeast.

Canola is a feasible crop. It is the solution in short term to increase the offer and diversification of raw-material for the production of biodiesel in the South, Southeast and Mid-West regions of the country. Then, it is this way ABrasCanola will ask the Federal Government, the Ministry of Agrarian Development (MAD) as well as the Ministry of Agriculture and Supply (MAS), so that together it is built a National Program to Encourage the Production and Use of Canola. The Association will have an important role in this construction because it will make the link between the productive sector and the Federal Government, which will have to create structuring politics to this new program.

According to the Companhia Nacional de Abastecimento (CONAB) in Brazil, the area grown with Canola in 2010, harvest of 2010/11, was 46.3 thousand hectares, superior in 49.4% to the harvest of 2009 which planted 31 thousand hectares. The most significant increase of the area occurred in Paraná obtaining 107.1% more of area planted, followed by Mato Grosso do Sul with 73.7%, Rio Grande do Sul with 30.4%, besides Santa Catarina, which began its production with 385 hectares. Between the states which grow Canola, Rio Grande do Sul is the greatest producer, with 64.99% of the total produced in the country. BSBIOS improved, in 2010, an area of 15 thousand ha distributed in 60 towns of the North, northeast and Northwest regions in Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina and Paraná.

ABrasCanola, which is headquartered in Passo Fundo/RS, has as President of the Administrative Council, Erasmo Carlos Battistella, as Administrative Vice-president, Fábio Júnior Benin, as Financing Vice-president, Renato Bresolin, as Technical Vice-president, Luis Gustavo Floss, as Vice-president of Associative and Institutional Relations, Jair Dutra Rodrigues, and Vice-president of Events Promotion, Bernardo Palma and as Vice-president of Politics and Fund-raising, Nei Cézar Manica. Yet, as holders who make part of the Council Tax: Renir Renato Resener, Alberi Ceolin and Paulo de Tarso. And, as substitute members: Mário Wagner, Adriano Nunes de Almeida and Lamar Sakis.

By Erasmo Carlos Battistella

Chief Executive Officer of BSBIOS

Vice-president of Associative and Institutional Relations of UBRABIO

President of the Associação Brasileira dos Produtores de Canola (AbrasCanola)