Brazilian flag ship “Norsul Crateus”, with 32,500 tons of maize, docked at the Recife port. The grain, which is normally produced in the Midwest and some states of the Northeast of the country and arrives in Pernambuco by road, this year will be imported from Argentina and will arrive by ship to Recife. Argentine corn will be destined for poultry and feed mills in Pernambuco and Paraíba. The vessel will be the first of an agreement signed between Porto do Recife SA and a pool of three companies, two of which are from Pernambuco (Mauricéa Alimentos, Notaro Alimentos) and one from Paraíba (Guaraves Alimentos), to import, through the anchorage, of 200K tons of corn. “Last year we moved 59.94K tons of corn. We were approached by poultry farmers in February of this year with the import proposal. Negotiation has advanced and the first ship coming from Ramallo, Argentina, is already docking week. The schedule is that a ship arrive such as this volume (32.5K tons) every 60 days “, points the president of the Port of Recife, Carlos do Rêgo Vilar. The ship must spend six days at the berth, unloading the product. In the Northeast, corn is produced in Bahia, Piauí, Maranhão and Sergipe, and the harvests of these states represent 85% of the corn that supplies the poultry sector in Pernambuco. “There are three main factors that lead us to import corn: low production in the Northeast producing states; the increase in the price of grain in the off-season and the difficulty of road transport that we have at the beginning of the harvest, “explains Marcondes Farias, owner of Maurice Food.
Source: Portos e Navios