35 2015 few years”. He says that when the product is new and the road is good, waste is almost non-existent. Nonetheless, he wants to improve efficiency, among other reasons, because corn is a low added value product, and road freight is very expensive in Brazil. The problem is that not even new implements can resist longer under certain road conditions. Holes, ravines, uphill or slope force the load weight to the left, right, back or forth, in a constant and repetitive jostling which may cause damage and develop small cracks leading to product losses. However, the President of the Brazilian Producers’ Association does not dare talking about percentage of loss: “Many people try to guess it, but no one knows for sure the exact amount”, he says. Close to zero Brazil is responsible for producing more than 90 million tons of soybean produced, more than 6.5 million tons come from the state of Mato Grosso do Sul. Lucas Galvan – Manager of the Technical Department of the Famasul System, a great Association that brings together producers, unions and entities such as the National Service for Rural Training (Senar) – spoke on behalf of the producers of Mato Grosso do Sul. “Virtually 100% of grains produced in the state are transported by trucks, except some few shipments made by railroad in the municipalities of Chapadão do Sul and Aparecida do Tabuado”, reveals Lucas Galvan. He also says that he does not have updated data about the volume of wasted grain during transportation. However, he believes that this figure is “close to the 0.25 percent”. Regarding the existence of the “ghost of 10% or more,” he believes that many people uses this number based on a study of Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) from 2003. He would rather use data provided by “transport companies’ which guarantee that losses do not exceed 0.25% on the weight shipped in relation to the final weight”. When mentioning the reasons for his confidence in transport companies’ data, the System Manager of Famasul explains that “producers and transport companies are investing heavily in improving road implements and these losses are constantly decreasing”. He practically exempts implement conservation from any responsibility and states that “bad conditions of roads and equipments” are the responsible for the waste. On the other hand, he is as pragmatic and resolute as Alysson Paolinelli: “There is no study about these losses.” On the national road implement quality, responsible for the bulk soybean transporting, he says, “this sector is increasingly specializing itself in dump trucks, a strategy which has been avoiding or, in some cases, even zeroing these losses. It is a modern and high quality sector”, he defines. Nevertheless, his formula to put an end once and for all to the grains losses during the trip is quite simple and well-known: “the continuous improvement of roads and regular maintenance of implements”.
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