Worst drought in decades hits Brazil

Brazil's Northeast is suffering its worst drought in decades, threatening hydro-power supplies in an area prone to blackouts and potentially slowing economic growth in one of the country's emerging agricultural frontiers.

Lack of rain has hurt corn and cotton crops, left cattle and goats to starve to death in dry pastures and wiped some 30 percent off sugar cane production in the region responsible for 10 percent of Brazil's cane output.

Thousands of subsistence farmers have seen their livelihoods wither away in recent months as animal carcasses lie abandoned in some areas that have seen almost no rain in two years.

Dams in the Northeast ended December at just 32 percent of capacity, according to the national electrical grid operator. That puts them below the 34 percent the operator, known as ONS, considers sufficient to guarantee electricity supplies.

As reservoir levels fell, state-controlled Petrobras imported nearly four times more liquefied natural gas (LNG) in the first nine months of 2012, a back-up for hydro-power generation that has hurt the firm's profits.

Brazil's reliance on hydro-power to generate electricity has fallen to 67 percent of all electricity generated from about 75 percent five years ago, according to the government-run energy research group EPE.

But the low water levels have still set off alarm bells in a country with a history of energy shortages that crimped economic growth as recently as a decade ago.

President Dilma Rousseff dismissed talk of an energy crisis on December 27, calling the idea of Brazil potentially needing to ration energy “ridiculous.”

However, there have been some signs of strain already. In October, the Northeast experienced its worst blackout in more than a decade, knocking Bahia state's important petrochemical industry offline.

A spokesperson at Brazil's agriculture ministry said the federal government has not calculated the financial cost or the loss to crops expected from the drought.

Crop supply agency Conab is also sending corn to the region in hopes of saving livestock.

Even with likely crop losses in the Northeast, Brazil still expects an overall record soybean and strong corn harvest this season

The government's Conab agency says Bahia should produce 3.76 million metric tons of soybeans this season, out of the 82.6 million tons it expects from Brazil's overall crop.

— Reuters