Greetings from Piricicaba, Sao Paulo Brazil! We had a great day yesterday. We started with a tour in Moji de Cruses of a Valtrac tractor factory. They are owned by Agco. While I am certainly not a tractor enthusiast, it was very interesting to see the assembly line and hear how a multinational agriculture corporation functions.

After that we headed west for 3 hours to Piricaba where we visited a sugarcane growers cooperative. They descibed their three areas of assistance for growers. Those are techincal information, political organization and social assistance. The technical work is alot like Extension work. They provide information on variety selection, soil analysis, and anylizing the cane for quality. The social assistance is mainly in health care.

Everyone has been extremely friendly and hospitable. I will expand on impressions of the country in future blogs. We are off the Agriculture University for the day today. More to come soon...