{"id":28472,"date":"2026-10-01T07:22:05","date_gmt":"2026-10-01T11:22:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/belacereais.com.br\/2026\/centro-oeste\/clima-seco-irrigacao-e-industria-proxima-por-que-goias-virou-o-centro-do-tomate-industrial-brasileiro\/"},"modified":"2026-10-01T07:22:05","modified_gmt":"2026-10-01T11:22:05","slug":"clima-seco-irrigacao-e-industria-proxima-por-que-goias-virou-o-centro-do-tomate-industrial-brasileiro","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/belacereais.com.br\/en\/2026\/centro-oeste\/clima-seco-irrigacao-e-industria-proxima-por-que-goias-virou-o-centro-do-tomate-industrial-brasileiro\/","title":{"rendered":"Dry climate, irrigation, and nearby industry: why Goi\u00e1s has become the center of Brazilian industrial tomato production."},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div class=\"materia\">\n<div id=\"uolpd-video-inarticle\"><\/div>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Logotipo Not\u00edcias Agr\u00edcolas\" height=\"21\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.noticiasagricolas.com.br\/dbimagens\/e12363a00741f9cc7caf23469101a4aa.png\" width=\"106\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"ads-wrapper\" id=\"dfp-noticiasagricolas-paragrafos-1\"><script>window.pushAds.push(\"dfp-noticiasagricolas-paragrafos-1\")<\/script><\/div>\n<p>Goi\u00e1s ended 2025 as the largest tomato producer in Brazil. According to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), the state accounted for approximately 1.6 million tons, equivalent to 35% of the entire national production. However, this leadership is even more pronounced when considering only tomatoes destined for industrial processing.<\/p>\n<p>Nadson Pontes, a professor at IF Goiano and researcher at the Center of Excellence in Bioinputs, points out that Brazilian production aimed at industry is mainly concentrated in Goi\u00e1s, S\u00e3o Paulo, and Minas Gerais, with producers from Goi\u00e1s accounting for approximately 701% of this segment.<\/p>\n<p>This concentration did not arise from a single advantage. It was built by a combination of the Cerrado&#039;s conditions, the availability of irrigation, the possibility of mechanization, the technological development of producers, and the installation of the processing industries themselves near the agricultural areas.<\/p>\n<p>The movement gained momentum mainly from the 1990s onwards. During that period, while traditional producing regions lost ground, the Cerrado region of Goi\u00e1s and Minas Gerais expanded its area and production. Research published in the journal Horticultura Brasileira indicates that, in 1990, the region accounted for 241% of the national area of industrial tomato production. By 2000, this share had already reached 771% of the national area of industrial tomato production.<\/p>\n<p>The progress was accompanied by productivity gains, the adoption of new management technologies, and the expansion of mechanized harvesting. At the same time, processing companies redirected investments to the Midwest, reinforcing the integration between agricultural production and industry.<\/p>\n<h2>The Cerrado region favored irrigation and mechanization.<\/h2>\n<p>Brazilian tomato production for processing occurs mainly during the dry season, between March and September. In Goi\u00e1s, this period coincides with a time of lower rainfall, making irrigation central to the production system. Embrapa indicates that Goi\u00e1s&#039;s crops are predominantly irrigated by center pivot systems.<\/p>\n<p>The dry season allows for greater control over the amount of water supplied to plants and favors field operations, but requires irrigation infrastructure to maintain crop development. Both water deficit and excess can lead to losses in productivity and quality.<\/p>\n<p>The terrain also played a role in this expansion. Flatter areas of the Cerrado facilitated the entry of machinery for planting and, especially, for harvesting, a stage that has undergone a profound transformation in recent decades.<\/p>\n<p>This change is evident in the producers&#039; own trajectory. F\u00e1bio Alves, who has been growing tomatoes for over three decades in the Itabera\u00ed region of Goi\u00e1s, witnessed the transition from a production system where tomatoes were sown directly in the field and manual harvesting required three entries into the crop to a system where the seedlings arrive ready for the producer and the fruit is harvested mechanically, in a single operation.<\/p>\n<p>A partner of Kraft Heinz for over two decades, Alves currently works with irrigation, precision equipment, and harvesting machinery. For the producer, technological advancements have increased operational capacity and profoundly changed how tomatoes are produced in the state.<\/p>\n<div class=\"ads-wrapper\" id=\"dfp-noticiasagricolas-paragrafos-2\"><script>window.pushAds.push(\"dfp-noticiasagricolas-paragrafos-2\")<\/script><\/div>\n<p>The combination of mechanization and irrigation has allowed for the formation of specialized farms capable of operating on a large scale. Pontes emphasizes that this profile is directly linked to the planning of other crops grown throughout the year.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;The producer of tomatoes for industrial processing, the industrial tomato producer, is often an irrigator, so he has an area, a center pivot. To optimize his equipment, he will try to plant soybeans in the first windows, and he has to have very clear in his mind, in his planning, how much time he has to manage the situation between the end of the soybean or summer corn or sweet corn crop and the beginning of the tomato planting.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>The technological level is also reflected in the current figures. In 2024, considering both table tomatoes and those destined for industry, Goi\u00e1s recorded an average yield of 93.4 tons per hectare, 23.5% above the Brazilian average, according to the state&#039;s Secretariat of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply. The cultivated area increased from 10,000 hectares in 2015 to 15,700 hectares in 2024.<\/p>\n<h2>Industry near the farmland closes the supply chain.<\/h2>\n<p>The presence of processing plants close to the producing regions is another important piece of this structure.<\/p>\n<p>Because it is a highly perishable raw material, industrial tomatoes require coordination between harvesting, transportation, and processing. In the Kraft Heinz operation observed by Not\u00edcias Agr\u00edcolas in Goi\u00e1s, for example, the company works to ensure that the interval between harvesting the fruit from the field and its arrival at the factory does not exceed six hours.<\/p>\n<p>Lucas Paschoal, Director of Agriculture at Kraft Heinz in Brazil, explains that meeting this timeframe requires a coordinated operation between harvesting, transportation, and receiving. According to the executive, Goi\u00e1s has favorable climatic conditions for the crop, specialized producers, and a production structure that allows agricultural areas to remain close to processing units.<\/p>\n<p>The company&#039;s agricultural production is concentrated in Goi\u00e1s and is carried out by partner producers. After harvesting, the tomatoes are sent to the Ner\u00f3polis unit, where they are transformed into paste, which can then proceed to other manufacturing stages.<\/p>\n<p>The proximity between farming and processing transforms the location of factories into part of the production logic itself. While the agricultural supply favors the presence of industry, the installed processing capacity creates demand for producers specialized in the crop.<\/p>\n<p>This relationship also helps explain why the concentration has been maintained over time. Studies on the evolution of the supply chain show that, as production migrated to the Cerrado region in the 1990s and 2000s, processing companies also established or concentrated units in the region.<\/p>\n<p>Today, the Goi\u00e1s Department of Agriculture highlights Cristalina, Silv\u00e2nia, and Morrinhos as the main producing municipalities in the state, with the activity distributed mainly throughout southern and southeastern Goi\u00e1s and the area surrounding the Federal District.<\/p>\n<div class=\"ads-wrapper\" id=\"dfp-noticiasagricolas-paragrafos-3\"><script>window.pushAds.push(\"dfp-noticiasagricolas-paragrafos-3\")<\/script><\/div>\n<p>Leadership, however, does not eliminate the risks of the activity. Pontes points out that Goi\u00e1s faces strong pressure from geminiviruses transmitted by whiteflies, requiring planting planning, resistant materials, and integrated management. The state&#039;s sanitary calendar establishes a specific window for transplanting and a period without tomato plants precisely to reduce the vector population.<\/p>\n<p>The climate also continues to be a decisive variable. In 2026, excessive rainfall affected producing areas in Goi\u00e1s and contributed to a reduction in the national projection for tomatoes destined for processing.<\/p>\n<p>The position built by the state, therefore, does not depend solely on favorable natural conditions. The Goi\u00e1s region is the result of a combination of Cerrado characteristics, availability of irrigation, mechanization, specialized producers, technological development, and an industrial structure installed close to the crops\u2014elements that, over more than three decades, have allowed production and processing to advance together.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<h6><em>THE <strong>Bela Cereais<\/strong> works with the best grains on the market in the Central West Region and also keeps you up to date with the latest news and analyses on agribusiness.<br \/>\nDon&#039;t forget to follow our social networks.<\/em><\/h6>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.noticiasagricolas.com.br\/noticias\/hortifruti\/428872-clima-seco-irrigacao-e-industria-proxima-por-que-goias-virou-o-centro-do-tomate-industrial-brasileiro.html?utm_source=parceiros&#038;utm_medium=rss\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Access News Source <\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Goi\u00e1s ended 2025 as the largest tomato producer in Brazil. According to the Brazilian Institute\u2026<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28473,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[90],"tags":[240,239,529],"class_list":["post-28472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-centro-oeste","tag-agricultura","tag-agronegocio","tag-hortifruti"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/belacereais.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/belacereais.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/belacereais.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/belacereais.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/belacereais.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28472"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/belacereais.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28472\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/belacereais.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/belacereais.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/belacereais.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/belacereais.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}