Jim Lenz:
In this episode of Whole Grain, we’ll provide our second exclusive on the ground report from São Paulo, Brazil, home of the recent Latin American event in which Jeeps partnered with Vict am International. We’re talking grain quality in tropical environments. All that and more coming up next. Hey folks, welcome grain professionals to this episode of Whole Grain. My name is Jim Lenz, your host of the Whole Grain show and the director of global training and education at Jeeps, where the mission of the grain elevator processing society is to champion, connect and serve the global grain industry and our members At Jeeps. We work to be the global community and thought leader for the grain industry, which feeds and fuels the world. Our guest for today is Carlos Campapadal. Carlos is a faculty member of the Department of Grain Science and Industry at the University of Kansas State. He works at the International Grains Program Institute, or IGP, as an extension specialist focused on outreach in the areas of grain storage, quality and processing, us grain grading and export systems and feed manufacturing. Vict am International hosted its first ever event in South America. The event took place October 3rd through the 5th of 2023 in São Paulo, brazil. Austin Deb Most, Jeeps member and chapters manager and I headed south to Vict am, Latin America. In addition to the expansive trade show floor, jeeps offered two days of educational sessions. Carlos played a role in the Jeeps educational offerings at the South American event. His session on maintaining grain quality in tropical environments generated some good discussion. Here’s my interview with Carlos and the trade show floor. Alright, we’re with Carlos Campo-Padel, outreach specialist in the grain storage and feed manufacturing at the IGP Institute, or also known as the International Grains Program, at the University of Kansas State. These are also faculty members at the Department of the Grains Science and Industry. Now, Carlos, we are recording this episode at the very first ever Vict am Latin in São Paulo, Brazil. We are actually right in the trade show floor, so if it sounds kind of busy and there’s some abstract noises and sounds back there, hey, this is what it’s like over here at the convention. We thank you for serving as a speaker in the educational session here and representing your profession and your specialty, and thanks for being a member of Jeeps and a longtime friend of Jeeps and part of the Jeeps family. But if you could first talk about this event, can you provide some context? We’re in day two of day three. What are your things? You can share, maybe, with our listeners, what this is all about?
Carlos Campapadal:
Sure, first of all, Jim, thank you very much for the opportunity to participate in this podcast and also again thank you on your behalf, jeeps, for the invitation to be a speaker to this event. So for me it is the first time of participating in Vict am, Latin America. I previously attended Vict am a couple of times in Asia and Thailand, so for me this is a very good experience and overall, because you get to see a very good combination of Participants I mean, the majority of course are here from Brazil but, being Sao Paulo, this big kind like For for Latin America, we also got people from Colombia, peru and and even all the way to Mexico, so you know, kind of same distance, far away as the US. And it is very interesting to see this event having all the different equipment manufacturers from all the way, from the feed side, feed manufacturing and, of course, grain handling, grain storage and then all the different other Areas that are related to grain, like laboratory equipment, of course, fire protection, all the different things to make that industry better. So it is a Great opportunity to be here, meet new people and also see a lot of familiar faces from the US and also here from South America.
Jim Lenz:
Wonderful, great overview. Thank you so much. There are educational sessions here and for those on the track of quality processing, storage and equipment for grain, you delivered a session. Maintaining grain quality in tropical environment was a great session is very well attended and We’ll talk about the Q&A because there were a number of questions out there and so that shows interest to show in scare. This is a good indicator that people are looking to help each other out and you are a great resource. So first of all, can you give us some highlights what your session was about?
Carlos Campapadal:
Well, you know, at first I like to add that that is great. The jeeps is part Victam the because part of what jeeps provides to its members and and non-members to is occasional materials. So having this session fits very well and, and you know, I had the opportunity to kind of talk a lot of the things that I do. I have work in grain storage for a number of years and, coming from a tropical country myself, costa Rica, it applies very well. So I did focus on on a couple things that I usually do when I talk about this area. This, this topic, is first of all to make people kind of remind them and understand the different factors that affect Grain, being corn, soy beans, wheat, anything when you store in the tropics which is a little bit different to the what we do in the US that is, more temperate weather, and what they do in Europe and Because a lot of what the technical material and education is more focused in those areas. So I always like to say, hey, some things are similar, but there’s a lot of different things that we have to focus because of the weather conditions high temperature, high relative humidity. So I cover a little bit about that and then I went through the different steps of how I like to explain it and how to mitigate those factors about Applying different practices that that can help you mitigate any potential losses of quality based on what you receive. And and when I do that I always like to do call it like steps, and one of them is always kind of like tell people you know what it’s important to do those practices, but you need to have a very strong quality assurance and control program. Focus on having a good sampling techniques and so you know to measure and understand what you’re getting and based on that, make decisions of what practices you’re going to be applied, how much investment or let’s say, resources you’re going to be used to help maintain that quality. So after that I focus on different stored practices. One of them, of course, aeration. That is a big thing that we do to cool down grain, to control insects, to reduce mole growth, but here in the tropics a little bit of a challenge. So I had to explain some of those things to then, of course, introduce to complement these practices and make a difference of an edge of my presentation. I complemented using technology. I mean, some of the different technologies are, some are very new some are not that new but probably not that well known or apply in the region to help complement that. For example, if you’re a storage and then a processing person, how you can use NRI technology to know what is the quality throughout the process, automatic sampling systems, for example, using sensors to measure carbon dioxide levels to help complement temperature cables to understand if there’s a loss of quality because of mole growths or infant infestations, and then, of course, different other sensors. For example, how can you know what is real time inventory by using infrared technology and different things that could help you be more efficient in a way that you know, applying technology costs more money at the beginning, but then at the end of the long term or medium long terms, you will actually save some money because you made your operation more efficient and then, of course, safer in a way.
Jim Lenz:
Very nice. Yeah, it was so well received. You were up there for an extended period of time because there were great questions that people asked and, if it’s okay with you, would you be able to share some of those inquiries that people had following your session?
Carlos Campapadal:
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, at some point I felt a little bit that I was going to take the next speaker’s time, but the session was well planned to give 15 minutes in between presentation plus. I gave 15 minutes overall of my time to answer them and we were I guess we were fortunate to have good audience and people interested and the questions, and I think I’ll make this remark that I gave my presentation in Spanish and, being my native language and closer to Portuguese, beside the fact that we had simultaneous translation. But I was always doubtful that people were going to pick up all the terms and ask the right questions, but they did, so have the audience understood Spanish directly and the other half had simultaneous translation. And some of the questions that came up. I guess I will divide them in three main areas. I mean the first one, of course, like every time you talk about storage, there’s always that questions on narration, and there were people asking well, you know why you want to put more air in your grain and if you’re going to cause more issues eventually, if you have more growth and I said well, you know, because we’re trying to cool down the grain to kind of like, buy you time to you could do something to move that grain or keep it for a longer term in terms of storage, but also introduce a technology of grain chilling where you actually cool down the air, not just use an ambient air to keep that grain even longer at cooler temperature. The cooler the grain, the less comfortable those insects will be there to reproduce and eat and also, of course, mold will not grow as fast, which is always a factor that can cause spoilage, and, of course, at some point, even if the conditions are right, produce afotoxins or octatoxins that are microtoxins that can be produced during storage, besides that, in the field. So we focused that a little bit. But then on the following questions, one that I was actually very happy to see, there were questions focusing on grain dust explosions, because there’s always that confusion that if you arrayed the grain you could cause that. And then, of course, even if we had some people in the audience helping with those discussions because they it’s a topic that it’s always people feel very passionate because you’re actually helping people be safe. So we had those questions and brain dust explosions mainly was how can they be created, what can cost them, and then we focus on those five components that are needed to have those. So we went a little bit in depth in terms of those and, of course, being at tropical weather locations. There’s always that I’m not gonna call it, maybe wrongly, but it’s like a myth that people think like well, they probably cannot occur only in dry places, like you know, united States or Canada or Europe. But, like I explained there to the audience, they do happen in tropical weather locations and I’ve seen them in Central America, southeast Asia. So we did some examples of why they occur. Even one gentleman from the audience that I actually know from Columbia explained that they have also happened in Columbia. So that’s something that we focus. And then, of course, also thinking about the difference in terms of brain dust explosions at the farm level, where the dust has a little bit more minerals and things like that, that is a little bit less likely that that will happen, but focus more on handler, storage and processing facilities, where the dust is a lot more combustible. So that’s always very important to focus on that. And then, probably the topic that I think I touched briefly but there are a lot of questions was fumigation and in fumigation being very few options on what to use to fumigate. You know I introduced a topic of recirculating phosphine and some people had the doubt about how can you seal a grahamden in a safe way and use recirculation, because you could have some leakage and we all know that if you have leakage of your gas you’re not going to be able to reach the concentration that you need to do a efficient fumigation and also the risk of leakage that can cause, of course, some hazard to humans or animals or nearby. So we address that on how to seal the grahamdens and what to do in a way you know to have a more efficient recirculation on an overall fumigation. And then another topic that I was actually a little bit surprised fellows that I know from Mexico being a big importer of US grain and also grain producing country. They were talking about how can you fumigate outer grain piles and I went a little bit in detail about it that how can you do, depending on your setup for your outer grain pile being a bunker or having the tar being hauled by aeration systems and at Kansas State you know we’ve had the opportunity to do some research into it on the modeling side. So I share some of our experience of that and then, of course, also explain why we’re doing the US, because in the US, of course, depending where you’re located, some grains are more likely to be put on piles than others. And they ask me why? And of course it’s because of a value also time of harvest and how do you move the grain and, of course, if you have the conditions for it. So that was something that we focused. So the questions were, you know, in a way, all them. I will say a little bit in the science, a little bit in the tentacle aspects of things that are complimented by research, and I will say also personal experience, some of the things that we see, being fortunate enough to have travel throughout the region doing this type of tentacle expertise on presentations and advice.
Jim Lenz:
Thank you for sharing that information. Those were some questions that they addressed in there. I think there was one more on the grain technologies to support them in this high-humid.
Carlos Campapadal:
So some people might call it new technology, some people might not, but of course there’s always a topic of modified atmospheres what can you do? And one question that came is how about the use of inert gas? And I went through it and kind of like share. I didn’t have it on my presentation but I share some of our experience at Kansas State University for the last 15 years that we have done research using carbon dioxide to do a modified atmosphere in a storage structure. And then, of course, the use of nitrogen, and I explain how that nitrogen can take over the oxygen in a steel structure to control the growth of insects and mold. And why are the some benefits of using and some disadvantages? Of course, because they both have them and some of the challenges of using the sub technologies. So those sub technologies are used widely in other crops every country crops, especially in the fruit and vegetables and other things, because of the value of those crops. But research has been done on the grains and at some point it can also be used. So some of those things were related and even afterwards we had some great conversations after the Q&A session with some of the participants that we met throughout the different hallways of the educational sessions and, of course, here at the expo, because part of the message and I’m adding here a little bit, but I think it’s important that my role as presenter but also, as Jim mentioned, as a DIPPS member participating in several committees in the past we like to grow the association and how it is expanding to international markets and so we’ve been here helping some of the people that we know, some people that we just met, on explaining DIPPS and some of them already know. But how can they benefit of joining as a member or coming back to Kansas City GEAPS Exchange future and taking advantage of all the educational material? Because presenting here is kind of like how I say, hey, it’s the infomercial coming over and participating in the DIPPS sessions that we have during the Exchange or all the rest of the educational material that DIPPS offer with Kansas State and other universities on their own, that could be beneficial from all the different areas, from management, human resources and, of course, all the different grain handling equipment and, of course, different grains that we have partners. So I think that’s part of the benefit of it being like an alcoholic and I’m talking too much about myself, but I think it’s. I feel like hey, I’m an ambassador to help Jeeves grow our industry and, of course, grow our academic programs at Kansas State University.
Jim Lenz:
We’re certainly lucky to have you as a good Jeeves friend and presenting here today. What’s really neat is that you’re helping make the grain industry smaller, meaning more connected, and we can help each other by folks like you devoting time and effort and energy to do that. So we thank you very much and thanks for this partner.
Carlos Campapadal:
No, thank you for the opportunity and also again for the invitation to be here. All right, thank you.
Jim Lenz:
We thank you, our listeners, for making whole grain part of your day. Whole grain is a production of Jeeves. The grain elevator processing society. The grain elevator and processing society’s the largest organization dedicated to advancing the grain handling and processing industry. Be sure to ww. w. geaps. com. Make it a great day and thanks for listening to Whole Grain.
