Beans: producers try to export from Rio de Janeiro and diversify – 06/20/2023 – Market

To avoid a flight of bean producers, industry representatives are trying to encourage the diversification of consumption in the country beyond products that are better known. At the same time, they are seeking to gain a foothold in Asian markets for carioca beans, which have little demand outside Brazil —the onslaught has not yet had an effect, however.

According to Marcelo Lüders, president of Ibrafe (Brazilian Institute of Beans and Pulses), the segment is promising, and Brazil, with different climates and altitudes, can produce a wide variety of beans. “There is no way to sustainably meet the entire demand for meat. Countries turn to plant protein. Within this area there is soy, but not everyone is sympathetic to this grain.”

Despite the optimism, he says that production in Brazil is very focused on carioca beans, popular in a large part of the country, but with exclusively national trade. “If you go to the Municipal Market in São Paulo, for example, there is a huge variety of beans, but carioca and black are cheaper”, he says.

According to Lüders, the low demand for the Carioca type in the international market discourages the producer, who ends up migrating to other crops, such as soy and corn.

Ibrafe has already tried to take carioca beans to tastings in India in order to boost exports to the country, but without success. Lüders says that importers are not interested in marketing a bean that is not their crop.

According to data from Mapa (Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock), in the first four months of this year, the country exported more than 37 thousand tons of beans abroad, which represents around US$ 30 million (R$ 144.5 million ).

Black-eyed peas, whose scientific name is vigna unguiculata and is also known as cowpea, accounted for the largest share of exported grains, with more than 13,300 tons. According to Afrânio Migliari, executive director of Aprofir (association of producers of beans and other grains in Mato Grosso), there is great demand for the product in Asian countries.

It’s not the only one. Exports of green mung, also called radiata, are significant compared to the total. In the first quarter, almost 12 thousand tons were shipped abroad. “Mung has a very strong world demand and it is a bean that, from planting to harvesting, takes 65 days, which is very fast”, says Migliari.

In addition to common beans, such as white and black —which add up to almost 3,000 tons exported together—, guando beans, or pigeonpea, used for animal feed and soil recovery, are also part of the export list of the Ministry of Agriculture. degraded —as in the case of sugarcane production. According to Migliari, pigeon pea is also consumed in the Asian diet. Grain exports are not as expressive, with around 1.6 tons exported in the first four months of the year.

With 523 tonnes shipped from January to April, there are also adzuki beans, which have a sweet taste and are used in Japanese cuisine to make sweets.

According to Migliari, pinto beans have the advantage of producing more per hectare in relation to other types of beans, but they may cost more with irrigation and be more susceptible to pests, as they remain in the soil longer, unlike products such as black-eyed peas, which are more resistant to disease, he says. Still according to him, boosting the export of carioca beans abroad is a challenge because of cultural differences.

Migliari also advocates encouraging the consumption of other beans in the domestic market. For this, he claims that it is necessary to raise the quality of products. President of the segment’s sectoral chamber at the Ministry of Agriculture, he says that he is discussing with the portfolio the creation of a rule to make it mandatory to indicate the origin of beans at the time of sale, in order to give greater traceability to the product.

“If you demand quality in delivery, it will reflect on the producer, who will start thinking about producing better quality beans, because he will make more profit. We are trying to show our owners and housewives that there are several types of beans nutrients that are extremely important for health but that are different from carioca, which is the one we know.”