Oxnard, California (April 20, 2007) – Pan American Agriculture Corporation announced on April 20, 2007 that it has competed the training of a group of farmers in Brazil on proper application of agriculture chemicals. The project is part of the company’s Awareness in the Americas program.

While Brazil has become a major producer of commodity crops such as citrus, soy beans and coffee, rural and small farmers who have focused on other products are often challenged in becoming commercially viable or to reach the same crop yields as large, professionally managed farming operations. Part of the problem for these farmers has been insufficient knowledge and training on proper application of agricultural chemicals.

“A lot of small farmers are never trained on how to use fertilizers and other chemicals”, said Hector Cervantes, who has overseen the Awareness in the America's program in Brazil for the past two months.

Inappropriate application of certain fertilizers or pesticides or application of the wrong products to certain crops can be very damaging to both crops and the environment. “We taught the farmers how to apply activated charcoal to bind pesticide molecules to them, and provided the farmers with simple calculators for determining how much charcoal to apply per acre, how to measure the contaminated area and how to incorporate it correctly with a disk or rototiller” said Cervantes.  Many farm workers in small farms never read the product labels and warnings.

Awareness in the Americas is one of Pan American Agriculture Corporations charitable programs funded through the company’s operating funds, and by private and public donations. The Brazil program was also funded by grants from Pan American Group Pte. Ltd., Pan American Agriculture (Asia) Pte. Ltd., Mr. Lucas Da Rocha, Mr. and Mrs. Nikolai Safavi, and Mr. and Mrs. Joao Rodrigues. 

Pan American Agriculture Corporation is a leading producer, processor and distributor of exotic culinary herbs.  It is also a leading company in the rapidly changing, technology driven, value added agriculture industry.  Based in California, the company has procurement partnerships throughout the Americas and the Pacific Rim, including Mexico, Chile, Canada and New Zealand, and Thailand.