In the same week that the PT candidate for the Presidency of the Republic, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, stated that agribusiness does not like him because “it will end the invasion of the Amazon”,
President and reelection candidate Jair Bolsonaro, in a speech at the United Nations, praised Alysson Paolinelli, one of the biggest names in Brazilian agriculture, nominated for the second consecutive year for the Nobel Peace Prize.
“Four decades ago, Brazil imported food. Today, we are one of the world’s largest exporters. This was only possible thanks to heavy investments in science and innovation, with a view to productivity and sustainability. I pay tribute here to the person of Alysson Paolinelli, Brazilian candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize, for his role in expanding the Brazilian agricultural frontier with the use of new technologies,” Bolsonaro said. Paolinelli is recognized not only in agriculture, but also in the scientific and academic environment, as the man who led the so-called “sustainable tropical agricultural revolution” from the years 1970, one of the factors economic and social impacts in the country’s recent history. His Nobel Prize nomination received 183 letters of support from 183 countries. In a recent interview with Gazeta do Povo, Paolinelli stated that Brazil will kill world hunger, as long as “stupidity and ideology don’t get in the way”.
Agribusiness has been the target of the PT candidate
By praising Paolinelli at the UN, Bolsonaro also took the opportunity to praise a sector that in recent weeks has been a recurring target of criticism from Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. First, the PT candidate said in an interview with Jornal Nacional that part of agribusiness is fascist and rightist ; days later, speaking to activists, he proposed to impose limits on meat exports , a sector in which Brazil is a world leader. Finally, tried to associate farmers with deforestation in the Amazon, when, in reality, it is a matter of police involving criminals and land grabbers, while producers are the ones who most preserve green areas in the country, pursuant to the Forest Code, within their properties.
“This year, the country has already started harvesting the largest grain harvest in our history. It is estimated at least 270 million tons. Brazil too, in a few years, will go from being an importer to an exporter of wheat. For the period 2022/2023, the forecast is that total production will exceed 300 ) millions of tons. As the Director-General of the World Trade Organization stated on a recent visit she made to us, if it weren’t for Brazilian agribusiness, the planet would go hungry, as we feed more than 1 billion people around the world,” Bolsonaro said at the UN.
Bolsonaro was able to capitalize on the opponent’s speeches
For the president of the Brazilian Association of Soy Producers (Aprosoja) , José Eduardo Sismeiro, Bolsonaro knew how to take advantage of the ball raised by the PT opponent. “Agribusiness has heard the PT’s hate speech, not Bolsonaro’s. The president has gotten even closer to rural producers. While the PT attacks the productive sector, Bolsonaro is praising and helping. It’s been a great move for him,” he says. Sismeiro.
In the PT campaign, there is a kind of task force in charge of bringing Lula closer to agribusiness, headed by the former Minister of Agriculture, Blairo Maggi. For now, the PT candidate has, in practice, snubbed the sector, saying, at most, that “they don’t have a problem with agribusiness” and that “they are useful to Brazil” because they produce food on a large scale. The competitor, from the PL, in turn, did not hesitate to say in full, at the UN, that “our agribusiness is national pride”.
