Sao Sebastiao do Paraiso, Sept 8 - Brazil's coffee farmers are turning to cows for help after the price of crop-boosting chemical fertilizers doubled in the last year, staff at coffee cooperatives say.
With coffee prices barely changed, rising labor costs and an 18 percent increase in the value of the local currency against the dollar have eroded earnings of growers in the world's top coffee producer.
To cut costs, farmers "are using fewer chemical and more organic fertilizers," said Marcelo de Moura Almeida, a manager at Cooparaiso, one of Latin American country's largest cooperatives.
"A lot of the time they have it and don't use it but in times of crisis you have to reduce costs," he said.
Fertilizer sales are slow at Cooparaiso as the 2008/09 harvest draws to a close, a time when farmers usually are buying stocks of nutrients ahead of spring rains that will trigger flowering for another crop.
Almeida expected sales of the input to fall 20 percent in the next year because of the price. Agronomist Ricardo Lima de Andrade at the Cocapec cooperative in the same southeastern region, also expected sales would slip.
"Fertilizer is a heavy burden in the cost of production. Usually fertilizer is 30 to 35 percent of the cost of production. Today it is more," he said. "The result is the farmer will use less and use more organic material."
Cooparaiso is encouraging its farmer members to analyze their plantation's soil at its laboratories. For a fee, technicians detail the soil's nutrient content and prescribe the right type and quantity of fertilizer, avoiding waste.
Lines of plastic and paper bags containing 500 gram soil samples were lined up on the laboratory floor for testing while an agitator shook a tray of soil solutions in glass flasks while administrators prepared results at the front desk.
Coffee cooperatives and buyers say the impact of reduced fertilizer use may only become apparent as late as the 2010/11 as chemicals applied this year would help the branches to sprout new stems on which the cherries will grow.
Husks which encase each coffee bean are already commonly thrown back onto the soil as a form of organic fertilizing.
But though farmer Jarbos Diogo Pereira's cattle lingered contentedly near the top of the farm's red dirt lane helping keep the grass trim, he said he wouldn't take any chances by skimping on inputs.
"Last year it was 900 reais a tonne, this year it is 1,700. I will still need to use it, if production were to fall there's just no way to go on."