Lula says Brazil had a “mutt complex” due to insufficient fertilizers

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) criticized, this Wednesday morning (13), that three fertilizer factories were closed in Brazil in recent years and that one of those that began to be built at the end of the second administration, in 2010, was not has been finished.

The criticism was made during the visit to a new fertilizer industry in the city of Serra do Salitre, in Minas Gerais, where he took advantage of the inauguration ceremony of the complete mining industry to say that the closure of the factories occurred due to the “predominance of a complex of mongrels” of the country.

“The country closed many fertilizer factories because here there was a predominance of a complex of mongrels, thinking that Brazil was inferior, that it didn’t know how to produce or couldn’t produce, that we had to sell what we had and buy what we didn’t have”, he stated, listing the closure of factories in Paraná, Sergipe and Bahia.

He also commented that a urea factory in Três Lagoas (MS), which he says he started building during the second administration and which was only 15% left to be completed when his term ended. Since then, he states, the work has not progressed and, due to the deterioration of the weather, today there must be 30% left to complete.

He based his criticism on Brazil’s prominent position in food production in the world, in which he criticized that the country is not self-sufficient in fertilizers, and that it took Russia’s war against Ukraine to realize this.

“A war between Russia and Ukraine needs to happen so that many people in this country can once again awaken the certainty that Brazil needs fertilizers. And Brazil already knew the importance of fertilizers, because everyone knows the quality of the land we have”, he added.

Lula exemplified the statement by remembering that the soil in the Brazilian cerrado was unproductive in the 1970s, and that, with management, it became one of the most productive places.

The president also complained that Brazil’s coffee, despite being the largest producer of the bean in the world, is less famous than Colombia’s, and that Italy and Germany make a lot of money because they have better roasting facilities and preparation machines.

“We need to take a leap in quality so that we live up to the level of investment we made in technology, science and genetics in this country”, he stated, repeating a speech already said in other ceremonies related to agribusiness when referring to the advancement of Brazilian agribusiness. in grains and animal protein.

For him, the investment by the European multinational Eurochem in Serra do Salitre is a recognition and a vision of the future that Brazil is transforming into what was said in the past, that it is the “breadbasket of the world” not only of food, but of renewable energy generation.

The group invested more than US$1.5 billion in the plant and will create 1,500 jobs. The expectation is to produce 1 million tons of phosphate fertilizers per year, equivalent to 15% of national production.

“We want to stop being an importing country [de fertilizantes]. Last year we paid US$25 billion to import fertilizers to Brazil. This money could have been paid to businesspeople who generate jobs, salaries and quality of life here”, concluded the president, inviting Eurochem representatives to invest more in the country.