The Wednesday HOT Take

A Opinião QUENTE de Quarta-feira

AgriNext registration is OPEN!

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Sessions and speakers:

Growing Uncertainty: Upstream Implications | with Wesley Davis of McKinsey & Company

Uncertain Policy, Uncertain Future: Navigating Biofuel Complexities | with Scott Gerlt, American Soybean Association

Making America “Healthy” Again, but at what cost to Agriculture? | with Devin Mogler, NOPA

South American Insights: Perspectives on Trade and the Future of Ag | with Ciro Echesortu, Grupo Ceibos & TLG Investment Funds

Additional sessions and panelist announcements coming soon!

Hosted and moderated by Karen Braun, Reuters and Susan Stroud, No Bull Agriculture

Visit NoBullAgriNext.com for additional event details. To view sponsorship opportunities, click HERE.

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Ten HOT Nuggets

10 | Olá de Curitiba!

Hello from Curitiba, located in the southern state of Paraná in Brazil.

After a more than 24 hour delay leaving the States, I finally arrived yesterday afternoon and spent the remainder of the day touring the Port of Paranaguá, one of the country’s major ag export hubs.

Paranagua operates a bit differently than other ports in that it has three berths that are part of its export corridor (which will be expanding to a total of seven berths in the next few years).

For lack of a better word, the American term I would use to describe the overall setup is a cluster f***.

The area has several exporting companies with dozens of bins and flat storage systems connected to export berths by crisscrossing belts and residential homes scattered in between.

I will get into the details in a special update in the next couple weeks, but here are a few noteworthy things I saw while there:

Predominant exports include soybeans, corn, wheat, and ag products like meal and soybean oil.

This vessel is being loaded with soybean meal:

We saw dolphins near this vessel as they feed on the product dust that hits the water while vessels are being loaded

The port also plays an important role in imports of inputs like fertilizer:

I think the biggest surprise of the afternoon was this RORO (roll-on/roll-off vessel which typically hauls cars:

I was NOT expecting it to have just brought in a fleet of farm equipment including John Deere combines, tractors, hay equipment, plus Krone and Claas silage choppers:

All done!

This was my first Paranaguá selfie… and last selfie wearing this hat. The fish at Paranaguá are now cheering on the Cardinals!

The planning process for No Bull’s AgVenture to Brazil is officially underway, tentatively planned for February 8-14, 2026.

Stay tuned for additional details!

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9 | For comparison’s sake

In preparation for a presentation I will give to a group of producers at AgRural’s conference in Paraná tomorrow, I decided to compare 2024/25 U.S. and Brazil soybean demand on a percentage-share basis.

Quite the difference!

It is also worth noting Brazil will both produce and use (all demand, combined) >40% more bushels than the United States in 2024/25.

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8 | Deal or no deal?

Details of last weekend’s US-China meeting were released shortly after I clicked send on the Weekender (rambling on about how long it would take to get a deal, nonetheless).

In a 90-day truce, both countries agreed to tap the breaks on additional tariffs and roll back those which had already been implemented.

Click HERE for the full details.