Page 8 - Vol.38-No.1

PRIVA

long-distance field grown produce. a healthy and comfortable life. With and food-secure future are based on
Earlier this year, Viessmann, a lead- this in mind, we opened our Middle collaboration, knowledge sharing and
ing international provider of climate East branch office last year to become the adoption of new technologies. In
solutions for residential and commer- a global knowledge partner locally on addition, we are committed to educat-
cial environments based in Germany, the ground and to help achieve the re- ing and exciting the next generation of
joined forces with Priva in a strategic gion’s indoor growing and horticulture growers in the Middle East and to make
partnership that enables us to advance goals. Over the past months we have horticulture an attractive career path
in our shared goal to address global worked and continue to build bridges for young nationals across the region
warming, energy transition and food between between companies, govern- with a focus on innovation and tech-
security around the world through ments and sectors with the firm belief nology, including Artificial Intelligence
partnerships, networks, and smart eco- that business models for a sustainable (AI) and robotics.
systems. In addition, we collaborated
with Octinion to develop an AI-driven
robot, called Kompano, which takes
on a lot of the labor-intensive work
in food productions – such as picking
the leaves from tomato plants. This is
a tool to compensate for looming labor
shortages in horticulture.
Projects like these are brilliant ex-
amples of how horticulture technolo-
gy adoption drives innovation in smart
and sustainable growing. In everything
we do at Priva, our focus is to devel-
op self-sufficiency through local and
efficient safe food production, and to
contribute to a sustainable world where
a growing world population can live
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Brazil: Coffee production cycle. In addition, adverse weather condi-
tions have notably affected the production outcome for
2021, such as persistent drought and high temperatures
The Agricultural Trade Office (ATO)/Sao Paulo esti- in major coffee growing regions in the second semes-
mate for the Brazilian coffee production for Marketing ter of 2020 and below average rainfall volumes up to
Year (MY) 2021/22 (July-June) remains unchanged at September 2021.
56.3 million 60-kg bags, a significant decrease of 19 The severe frosts that affected Arabica coffee grow-
percent compared to last year’s record output of 69.9 ing areas in June/July did not significantly damage the
million bags. No official forecast has been announced 2021/22 crop. CONAB preliminary estimates that 150,000
for the MY 2022/23 coffee production; however, the - 200,000 hectares out of 2.48 million hectares, or 6 to 8
initial expectations of a record crop were undermined percent of the total area planted to coffee, was affected
by the prevailing below-average rainfall volumes up to somehow by the frosts (from minor to major damage).
September 2021 and severe frosts that affected Arabica However, the damage affected mostly branches and
production growing areas in June/July. Coffee exports leaves, not the beans. During the harvest of the Arabica
for MY 2021/22 are projected at 33.22 million bags, a crop, more specifically, on June 30, July 20, and July 30,
sharp drop of nearly 12.5 million bags from all-time re- frosts affected some growing areas in Parana, Sao Paulo
cord exports of 45.67 million bags in MY 2020/21, due and Minas Gerais. There was no major interruption of
to expected lower product availability. the harvest because of the frost. Also, approximately 80
percent of the Arabica crop had already been harvested
Production by late July.
The Agricultural Trade Office (ATO)/Sao Paulo esti-
mates the Brazilian coffee production for marketing year
(MY) 2021/22 (July-June) at 56.3 million bags (60 kilo-
grams per bag), green equivalent, unchanged from the
previous estimate. The figure represents a reduction of
19 percent relative to the previous season.
Arabica production is estimated at 35 million bags,
a 30 percent reduction compared to the previous crop.
Most producing areas are in the off-year of the biennial

AGRICULTURE EXPORT
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