Editor’s note: This is Part 1 of a two-part column.

“Spell-check” thinks Brasil is spelled with a Z (Brazil). Down there they spell it with an S (Brasil). I have been to Brasil close to 35 times, mostly for investment duties, since December of 2001. That was just a month after 9-11 when the world changed. I went because I wanted to get a first-hand view of our rising ag competitor. I learned that U.S. farmers really do not have a good perspective of where they fit into the global ag structure until they have seen Brasil’s ag. Home looks different after you have been there.

The relationship between our families began back in 1996 when my son Matthew joined a high school student exchange (GAPP) program where, by chance, he was hosted by the Schutte family in Dresden, Germany.

We then hosted both Schuette sons, Tino and Marco, to internships here in the U.S. and Matthew returned to Dresden during college for a summer internship, staying with the Schuttes, while working on an East German dairy farm (treating cows for foot-rot). Tino is now a university professor of energy economics and Marco is the CFO of a German pharmaceutical company. During summers in college, Matthew also participated in a summer European farm tour hosted by ISU and attended a course at Bejing University in China arranged by Cargill. Matthew worked as the COO of our Brasilian farm investment group for 11 years producing corn, soybeans and cotton in Bahia. He later went back to China with his graduating MBA class trip. He is now married into a Brasilian farm family with two passports. He also manages production on our Kruse family farm in NW Iowa producing a record corn yield for us last year.

Our families have attempted to meet somewhere in the world every two years switching back and forth between regions as hosts. The pause was caused by the Covid pandemic. We have had wonderful experiences together. This reunion we spent time in Rio, the Seibt’s farms in Minas Gerais and then on the coast near Salvador. The next reunion in 2028 will likely be a return to Germany and the Baltic region. The Kruse family originally came from Bad Doberman in northwest Germany. Matthew’s wife’s, Seibt family in Brasil also came from Germany so Germany connects all of the families. It was our grandson Theodore’s 4th birthday party there and he was sung “Happy Birthday” in English, Portuguese and German. He is fluent as a 4-year-old can be in the first two languages. Born in Des Moines, he has dual citizenship as do his parents.

The Seibt family farms produce seed soybeans, as well as operate a dairy and a coffee farm. Carol and her two brothers and all their spouses are the farm’s managers. It is truly a family farm. The next adult Seibt generation, however, includes a doctor, veterinarian and unrelated business owner as occupations so has just one member that is working the office for the farm. It’s a long time yet for “Teodoro” to get ready to farm. The soybean seed operation currently accounts for 50% of total farm revenue with the dairy and coffee farms each providing 25%.

Sementes Gaucha is the family soybean seed company operating for 46 years. AI provides a good overview. They produce 3,200 hectares of seed and contract 7,000 hectares from other growers (roughly 25,000 acres total). They operate a 5 million Euro seed processing facility, which includes cold storage. Their farm is located on a 30,000-hectare plateau at 3,000-foot elevation (perfect elevation for coffee).

Philippe Seibt and his wife oversee the soybean seed entity. He says the soybean seed business has gotten tough there for two reasons. First was that the soybean acreage expansion was stalling out as Brasilian soybean farmers struggled with profitability. The other was that key seed trait patents were expiring, so farmers could then retain their own seed without paying a royalty. They would not then have to buy seed and could save their own. The family believes business diversity is important as the soybean seed entity may not make money, but the dairy and coffee are doing very well.

Their dairy herd has 1,000 producing cows with another 1,000 in replacements. They grow 600 to 700 hectares of first crop corn that is used primarily for silage for the dairy. They milk three times per day producing 35,000 liters, which is picked up twice daily by Nestles. Their herd is the 53rd largest in Brasil and rated Diamond quality by Nestles so is dried by Nestles to make baby formula.

Minas Gerais is considered to be the Wisconsin of Brasil’s dairy production. The other of Carols two brothers and his spouse oversee the dairy operation.

Carol and Matthew spend about three months in Brasil each year and are focused on Gaucha Specialty Coffee, which is exported into the U.S. This was my wife and my first return trip to Brasil since Carol and Matthew were married there in 2017. The country is still filled with trucks, but the roads were some improved. There were more coffee trees there now than I had remembered. Coffee had hit a record price and other crops were losing money so some were planting more coffee. That means in two to three years, when these new trees add to production, the coffee market will tank. Brasil produces 40% of the world’s coffee and over half of Brasil’s coffee is grown in Minas Gerais. It has become a branded coffee region. There are 4,500 coffee farms there with only 100 Brasilian coffee farms being 1,000 acres or more. There are two mega-farms with over 10,000 acres of coffee. The Seibt Gaucha coffee farm is 1,200 acres.

To be continued