Highproductivitywasthehighlight
intheseason,leadingtoarecord
cropintheState,whichrelieson
severalSeagriprograms
T
he first reference to soybean
as food dates back some five
thousand years. In spite of re-
cords that mention trial soy-
bean crops in Bahia from 1880
to1890, the introductionof this crop inBra-
zil officially starts in 1901, when these ker-
nels are easily found in different places.
More than 100 years later, soybean earns
agriculture flagship in the State. In the
West, the oil seed occupies 71.8%of the to-
tal cultivated area in the region.
Nowadays, soybean in the West ac-
counts for 5% of the entire national pro-
duction and 53% of the volume produced
in the Northeast. In the 2016/17 crop year,
production jumped from 3.1 million to 5.3
million tons, up 58% from the 2015/16
growing season. This result was achieved
thanks to high productivity, from 35 sacks
to 54 sacks per hectare. Besides favor-
able weather conditions, which also had
a say in the good results, improvement
stemmed from cultivation techniques,
which had been suggested by the Western
Bahia phytosanitary program.
An example is the technical watch on the
soybeanfallowperiodcarriedoutbytheBahia
State Agriculture Surveillance Agency (Adab),
an autarchy under a special regime, linked
with the Bahia State Aquaculture, Fishery,
Livestock, Agriculture Secretariat (Seagri). Ac-
cording to Rosângela Schettini Knupp, direc-
tor at ADAB’s Vegetable Sanitary Surveillance
Department, 126 farms were inspected, 11 of
themwere ordered to eradicate crop remains
andplants,fromdataofSeptember2017.“De-
spite being updated, these figures are still un-
Bahia
harvests record crop
Soybean fallowperiod,monitoredby Adab, proved to be important
derestimated, as not all the operations were
launched into the system, and the fallow pe-
riod, as well as its final operations, are still on
theirwayuntilearlyOctober”,shestated.
The soybean calendar for the 2017/18
growingseason,accordingtodecisionstaken
atthemeetingoftheRegionalSoybeanTech-
nical Council, held on 1st August 2017, was
published under Decree nº 235, of 15 August
2017, establishing the followed limits.
n
Seeding:
8October 15January
n
Harvest deadline:
30May
n
Fallowperiod:
1st July to7thOctober
The secretary of Agriculture, Vitor Bonfim,
renewed the Harvest Operation agreement
between Adab and the Bahia Association
of Farmers and Irrigators (Aiba) for carrying
out inspection initiatives during the 2017/18
growing season in the West. ‘These routine
inspections of vegetable transportations,
cropmonitoring, sales and use of pesticides,
as well as sanitary education initiatives, are
to drive the sector even further andwill keep
the productive quality of soybean across the
State”, concludedBonfim.
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