Brazil’s IBGE Hikes 2017 Grain Forecast Growth to 20.3 Percent
By Lise Alves, Senior Contributing Reporter
SÃO PAULO, BRAZIL – This year’s Brazilian harvest should total 221.4 million tons, an increase of 20.3 percent in relation to last year, according to a report by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE).
The report also indicates that the 2017-harvested area should increase by 4.9 percent to 59.9 million hectares.
The latest harvest growth forecast is significantly higher than the December 2016 estimate that called for a 14.2 percent increase in the 2017 harvest in comparison to the previous year.
Together, Brazil’s three largest harvests (rice, corn and soybeans) represent 93.5 percent of all harvest production estimates and 87.4 percent of the area to be harvested this year. Much of that production will be exported outside the country, helping with Brazil’s trade balance.
The IBGE expects production to increase in all regions of the country, especially in the Northeast, where growth will be of 89 percent this year. In the Center-West, the largest producing region in the country, the estimated growth is of 25.2 percent, while in the North, production should grow 16 percent, in the Southeast 10.0 percent and in the South 9.4 percent.
Like in previous years the state of Mato Grosso is expected to lead the national grain production with a 24.6 percent participation, followed by Paraná (18.3 percent) and Rio Grande do Sul (14.8 percent). Together, the three states represent 57.7 percent of the total expected harvest production this year.
“The improvement in (Brazil’s economic) performance will be a consequence, among other factors, of the recovery of agricultural production, with more regular rains and the advance of the plantation within the expected schedule,” stated the Brazilian Confederation of Agriculture and Livestock (CNA) recently.
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