ECR JAN 2013

Page 12

Agriculture in Brazil Agri-Gulliver in Lilliput

the agribusiness share reaching 23 percent. In

In the era of building the economic strength 2009, agriculture accounted for 19.3 percent on the pillar of Industrial production, Brazil´s of the labor force, or 19 million people, thus agricultural muscles bring quite an impressive strongly contributing to poverty reduction. diversity which is as pleasant as the one in the Agribusiness employment accounted for 2.7 Amazon jungle. Brazil ranks third among the percent of the labor force. world’s major agricultural exporters and fourth

It is no surprise that Brazil is today the

for food products. By cultivating agricultural world’s largest producer and exporter of a and oil resources, Brazil also ranks second wide range of products: soybean, coffee, cane worldwide for bioethanol production.

sugar, orange juice, meat and tobacco. In spite

This quasi-miracle has few important of weak governmental support to producers as factors in its base. Brazil has largest arable but compared with OECD countries, and a domestic yet to be utilized land reserve, strong exporting consumption that captures 79 percent of agricultural activities, radical economic reforms agricultural production, agribusiness accounts and an aggressive trade and influence policy. for over 38 percent of Brazil’s exports, and a Because of this, agriculture is still a driving $77.5 billion trade surplus in 2011, while the force of the Brazilian economy with 5.8 percent country was still a net importer of agricultural of GDP (against 2 percent in France), and with goods in the 1970s. In fact, agriculture has been

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Economic and Commercial Report


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