In 2023, Brazil’s agribusiness sector experienced a 2.99% decrease in its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) compared to the previous year.
The Brazilian Confederation of Agriculture and Livestock (CNA) and the Center for Advanced Studies in Applied Economics (Cepea) reported it.
This downturn reduced agribusiness’s contribution to the national GDP from 25.2% in 2022 to 23.8%.
The decline was driven by price drops in all parts of the production chain. The analysis covers the entire chain: inputs, farming, agroindustry, and agroservices.
It provides a broader view than IBGE, which focuses solely on farm-gate agricultural production.
The input segment, encompassing fertilizers and agricultural machinery, bore the brunt, plummeting by 23.57%.
This led to smaller contractions in the primary sector by 1% and in the agroindustry and agroservices sectors by 2.05% and 1.31%, respectively.
Despite these challenges, record harvests and higher livestock production partially offset the negative trend, stimulating demand for agroservices.
Breaking it down, the agricultural GDP fell by 3.26%, with only the primary sector seeing growth at 5.11%, thanks to record outputs and cheaper inputs.
Lower fertilizer prices and reduced machinery production caused a 27.92% drop in the input segment, affecting industry and services.
Livestock GDP down 2.3%, primary production by 10.61%, despite lower costs, and higher output, due to declining commodity prices.
Agribusiness decline underscores Brazil’s economic volatility, stressing need for stability strategies and production efficiency.