Brazil’s agricultural production feeds 10% of the world, says EMBRAPA study

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Brazil’s agribusiness is responsible for feeding around 800 million people, or approximately 10% of the global population, according to a study released on Thursday by the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (EMBRAPA), which assessed data based on the country’s basic production of grains and oilseeds.

According to Elisio Contini and Adalberto Aragão, responsible for the study, the figure considers that grains and oilseeds are the basis of human nutrition – for direct consumption, processed foods or as feed for meat production.

“In terms of people fed (by Brazil), according to authorities’ reports and technical papers, the figures ranged from 1 billion to 1.5 billion people. We decided to check these figures, starting from Brazil’s grain and oilseed production compared to the world’s,” Contini said in a statement.

The authors considered two perspectives for the result: one, which takes into account the physical production of grains, pointed Brazil as being responsible for feeding some 637 million people in 2020. The other, which aggregates to physical production its respective value, points to 772.600 million people fed by local production last year.

Contini and Aragão consider the second result as being closer to the accurate answer, given that it considers the multiplication of international product prices, as measured by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), by the local grain production.

Depending on price and harvest variation, the results fluctuate according to the year studied -in 2019, another period considered by the study, the estimate of the population fed by Brazil reached 809.472 million, because of prices.

“Thus, it can be stated that around 800 million people are fed by Brazil, including the Brazilian population,” stated the authors, who also mention a global population of around 7.76 billion people in 2020.

In addition to the new calculation, the study also pointed out that Brazil’s share in the global food market jumped from US$20.6 billion to about US$100 billion in the past ten years, mainly in meat, soy, corn, cotton and forest products.

The calculations also showed that Brazil’s share in world grain production grew from 6% in 2011 to 8% in 2020, according to EMBRAPA, with national agriculture and livestock growing as a result of strong demand from China, Brazil’s main buyer of soybeans and meat.

According to estimates by the National Supply Company (CONAB), Brazil should produce a record harvest of 268.3 million tons of grains in 2020/21, up 4.4% year-on-year.

Source: Uol Economia