Brasília – The January estimate of gross production value for the 20 main Brazilian crops shows that the total figure may reach 159.6 billion Brazilian reals (US$ 91.7 billion) in 2010, a result 4.3% higher than recorded in 2009. The increase is due to price recovery and production volume for several crops. The highlights, in terms of growth compared with last year, are coffee, sugarcane, onion, orange, tomato, soybean and wheat.
“This improvement may be decisive for the economic results of agriculture in 2010,” forecasts the Strategic Planning analyst and coordinator to the Brazilian Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply, José Garcia Gasques. He also underscores that the estimated figure for this year is virtually the same as the one recorded in 2008, which was the highest since records started being kept, in 1997.
Last year
The Gross Production Value (GPV) figure for 2009, including consolidated end-of-the-year data, was 153 billion reals (US$ 87.9 billion), 4.5% less than in 2008. Gasques explains that the lower figure, which takes inflation into account, is due to the 8.3% reduction in crop size recorded in 2009, and to lower prices for various agricultural products. The analysis was made based on the latest information on grain crops disclosed by the National Food Supply Company (Conab) and the Brazilian Institute for Geography and Statistics (IBGE).
Products with a strong influence on the formation of value in agricultural production, such as cotton, rice, coffee, bean, sugarcane, maize and wheat, recorded lower actual prices than usual in 2009. The prices of some, like maize, bean and cotton, dropped nearly 30% last year in comparison with their historical prices. Thus, agricultural prices, alongside weather problems such as drought, excess rain and frost were key contributing factors to the lower crop production value in Brazil in 2009.
Regions
The Southeast region of Brazil ranked first in terms of GPV in 2009, followed by the South and the Midwest. The states of São Paulo, Mato Grosso and Paraná made the greatest contributions to the national total. It is also worth noting that despite having had the lowest production value, the North region was the only one to record growth in 2009. There are no regional figures available for 2010 yet, therefore the estimates announced last month remain virtually the same.
*With information from the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply. Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
