Influence of sugarcane productivity on the cost of mechanized harvesting

Sugarcane cultivation is highly relevant to the national agribusiness sector. In the 2014/2015 harvest, Brazil produced 634.8 million tons on just over nine million hectares cultivated mainly in the states of São Paulo, Goiás, Minas Gerais, Paraná, and Mato Grosso do Sul, generating a large number of direct and indirect jobs. In the sugarcane production process, harvesting stands out for its high costs, representing approximately 35% of the total production cost, with mechanized harvesting accounting for 53% of this share. The definition of this cost is a consequence of several variables, but mainly influenced by agricultural productivity, since the harvesting yield of the equipment basically depends on the relationship between harvesting speed and sugarcane field productivity. In this context, the objective was to evaluate the influence of agricultural productivity on the cost of mechanized harvesting of the crop in an agro-industrial unit located in the state of Goiás. It was found that increased productivity was fundamental to increasing harvesting yield, reducing the costs of this process. It is concluded that the higher the agricultural productivity, the lower the cost of mechanized harvesting, due to the reduced need for harvester hours to perform mechanized harvesting in the studied area, which was 21,496 ha. The cost of mechanized harvesting was reduced by 27.9% due to a 31.09% increase in agricultural productivity. The cost reduction amounted to 2.88 million reais during the study period.