Dec 16, 2013
Acre State Government to invest in New Hog Producing Facilities
Author: Michael Cordonnier/Soybean & Corn Advisor, Inc.
The state government of the state of Acre in northwestern Brazil recently announced a program designed to help small family farmers increase their hog production. The state of Acre is already the largest pork exporting state in northern Brazil and the governor of the state, Tiao Viana, feels the state is in a good position to increase pork exports to Asia. Acre is the westernmost state in Brazil and there already exists a highway from the state that crosses neighboring Peru to the Pacific Ocean and that highway could be the stimulus for the increased pork exports.
The state government announced that will invest R$ 10.5 million to aid the construction of 55 hog production facilities for small family farmers in the state. The state will invest R$ 190,000 into each facility and the farmers will contribute R$ 48,000 per facility from loans obtained from the Banco do Brasil and the Banco da Amazonas. On December 27 the first four facilities will be inaugurated and all 55 facilities are expected to be completed by March of 2014.
The total investment from the state will total R$ 18 million with the remaining R$ 7.5 million invested in an expanded processing facility. The facility was built with public and private funds and it already processes 300 hogs per week even though none of the new production facilities have been built. Once the new facilities come online, the number of hogs processed is expected to increase exponentially.
The highway linking the state with the Pacific Ocean has been promoted as a long needed link to the Pacific. It could be a corridor for high value exports such as meat produced in northwestern Brazil, but it would probably not be economical to ship bilk commodities such as grain via the highway.