CHAPTER 3 - THE AGRICULTURAL STRUCTURE

The development of agriculture in Brazil^[2]

During the first four centuries of Brazil’s history, national production was intimately linked to the agricultural activities, mainly sugar cane planted along the coast using manual slave labour. The ownership of the land during that period was through donations by the Portuguese crown, the so-called sesmarias (crown land donations), which varied in size depending on the wealth of the person receiving the land. This benefited only landlords and military personnel. In this way, the territory of Brazil was divided into immense properties, with very little land remaining without an owner in the areas where the Europeans lived, mainly along the coast.

Mono-cropping required extensive areas of land in order to reduce production costs, facilitate trade, permit industrialization and to utilize the slave labour. In addition to the landowners and the slaves, there was a small free population (white but not belonging to the landlord class, ex-slaves, mestizos, etc.) who occupied small strips of land for subsistence production. These people did not own the land but they could produce most of their subsistence requirements as well as surpluses for the domestic market. These mixed, multiple cropping farming systems, implemented initially in the Southeast region, expanded with demographic growth and development of the interior. Pioneers from the State of São Paulo, when creating settlements in the interior, reproduced the small farm system, producing food crops.

With few exceptions, up to 1820 the increase in the number of small properties in Brazil was a result of the illegal ownership of land since it could not be acquired except by donation from the Portuguese crown. The sesmarias system ended but at first it was not substituted by new legislation. This accelerated the system of ownership of unoccupied land, resulting in a further expansion of the small production units.

In the middle of the nineteenth century, the Brazilian economy started again to be based on export agriculture, especially coffee. This resulted in new land policies, with the promulgation in 1850 of a Land Law, which abolished the old ownership regime and prohibited the acquisition of land means other than by purchase. This law resulted in an increase in the price of land and made acquisition difficult. The lots could be sold only in public auctions, with cash payment. The product of the sales was to be used to promote the immigration of people from other countries to work on the large farms.

At that time, England was campaigning against slavery, which was prohibited in 1851. There was, therefore, a lack of labour for the large coffee plantations. Foreign immigrants arriving in Brazil were not permitted to own land, except in the Southern region where agricultural production was not intended for export. However, due to the large area of the country, the Land Law was not very effective. The small producers moved on, resulting in an expansion of the pioneering frontier.

At the end of the nineteenth century and at the beginning of the twentieth century, there was a large increase in coffee production, which had expanded to cover vast portions of the State of São Paulo after penetrating the State of Rio de Janeiro. This resulted in the emergence of a domestic market for food crop products in the urban centres that developed.

The coffee plantations were located in recently deforested areas and they were highly productive in the early years. However, the coffee yields later started to decline and farmers had to buy and deforest more land in the north and northwest areas of the state, penetrating after some time into the north of the State of Paraná. The abandoned land of the old coffee plantations was divided and purchased largely by the established immigrants. The censuses of 1920 and 1940 recorded the process of land redistribution that occurred during that period, especially after the crisis of 1929, when the price of all agricultural export products fell heavily.

Agricultural structure

Brazil is characterized by the coexistence of large estates with a large number of small farms. In 1985, out of 5.8 million agricultural establishments, almost 90 percent had an area of less than 100 ha and occupied only 21 percent of the total area dedicated to agricultural activities. However, apart from sugar cane and to a lesser extent soybeans, rice and citrus, agricultural establishments possessing less than 100 ha are responsible for a substantial proportion of the agricultural production of the country. These smaller farms are responsible for: 37 percent of the production of rice, 37 percent of the soybeans, 14 percent of the sugar cane, 61 percent of the cocoa, 54 percent of the coffee, 54 percent of the wheat, 78 percent of the common beans (Phaseolus vulgaris), 66 percent of the cotton, 85 percent of the cassava, 69 percent of the potatoes, 64 percent of the maize and 43 percent of the citrus production in Brazil.

However, in some regions, a higher proportion of the production of these products comes from larger farms. This is the case of sugar cane in the Southeast, Northeast and Centre West regions; of soybeans in the Centre West region; of rice in the Centre West and South regions and of maize in the Centre West region. Large farms of 100 ha or more are concentrated mainly in the Centre West region, where soybeans predominate as the main crop.

The South and Southeast regions have limited land available for agricultural expansion. The Southern region has registered in recent decades a reduction in the number of farms mainly due to modernization. Many of the farmers who moved out went to the new agricultural frontier areas, mainly in the Centre West and in the North region. The states of Rondônia and Acre in the North region have the best soils and hence are economically viable for small farmers.

The expansion of the total area of the farms has been accompanied by significant growth of the areas planted with grain crops. Maize and soybeans alone occupy more than half of the area dedicated to grain crops.

Policies for the promotion of livestock production have had most impact in the North and Centre West regions. In the North, the number of cattle increased from 1.2 million head in 1960 to 3.9 in 1980 and then to 13.3 million in 1990. In the Centre West region the figures were 10.5 million head in 1960 and 45.9 million in 1990. In the Centre West region, the increase was facilitated by the predominance of savannah (Cerrado). In the Northern region, livestock farming involved deforestation and the impoverishment of the soils, once deforested, was another factor. Even so, in 1985 livestock occupied 52 percent of the land under production in this region.

The expansion of Brazilian livestock has been characterized more by the incorporation of new areas into the productive process than by the intensification of production, for example in feedlots. In the Southeast, the proximity of the consumer markets led to a qualitative improvement of the herds and a specialization in improved breeds of milk and beef cattle (Brahma or European), rather than an expansion in numbers. In the Southern region, much farmland traditionally devoted to livestock production was converted to the production of export crops such as soybean.

Source: Instituto Brazileiro de Geogra.a e Estatística (IBGE), 2003.

TABLE 4
Number of farms by region, Brazil, 1995/96

Source: IBGE, 2003.

The total number of farms in Brazil is 4 848 183, with the largest number located in the Northeast (47.7 percent), South (20.8 percent) and Southeast (17.3 percent), which together account for 85.8 percent of the total (Table 4). The percentage of farms by size is shown in Figure 4.

Of the total number of farms, those with less than 10 ha represent almost 50 percent of the total, those with less than 100 ha for 89.3 percent and those above 100 ha for only 10.7 percent (Table 5). In the Northeast region, which has one of the lowest rates of fertilizers consumption per ha in the country and is among the regions with the lowest productivity of basic food crops, over two thirds of farms have less than 10 hectares. These farms are mostly involved in subsistence farming.

TABLE 5
Farms according to size, 1995/96

Source: IBGE, 2003.

Adoption of agricultural technology

A low level of adoption of productive technologies can explain the low crop productivity in the North (N) and Northeast (NE) regions. This can be seen from Table 6, taken from an agricultural census of 1995/96. For example, advisers from the rural extension service visited only 6.6 percent (N) and 4.1 percent (NE) of the farms. In addition, only 9.5 percent (N) and 18.2 percent (NE) of the farmers reported they were using lime and fertilizers and only 0.8 percent (N) and 6.5 percent (NE) practiced some kind of soil conservation. Irrigation is little used in Brazil. In the Northeast region, which includes a large area with a semi-arid climate, irrigation is used on only 4.9 percent of the farms.

TABLE 6
Proportion of farms using agricultural technology and electricity

⁽¹⁾ TA = Technical assistance;
⁽²⁾ LF = Lime and fertilizers;
⁽³⁾ PC = Pest control;
⁽⁴⁾ SC = Soil conservation;
⁽⁵⁾ I = Irrigation;
⁽⁶⁾ EE = Electrical energy.

Source: IBGE, 2003.

Crops

The continental dimensions of Brazil and the diversity of soil types and climates permit the production of a large variety of crops in the various agro-ecological zones of the country. Most of the potential farmland of Brazil (550 million ha) is under pasture (178 million ha), with some 78 million ha of natural pastures and 100 million ha of improved pastures, mainly in the Centre West, Southeast and South regions. Of the current total agricultural area (50 million hectares), the cultivation of grains (rice, maize, soybean, common beans, sorghum, and wheat) occupies 38 million ha, representing 76.7 percent of the cropped area. Sugar cane with 5.1 million ha, coffee with 2.3 million, cassava with 1.7 million and citrus with 0.8 million ha are other important crops.

At first Brazilian agriculture was concentrated on the most fertile soils along the Atlantic coast and in the South and Southeast regions of the country, notably with the production of coffee, sugar cane and some cereals. This situation prevailed until the end of the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s, when governmental incentives promoted the settling of the Centre West region, known as the Cerrado (a savannah type vegetation), whose total area amounts to 207 million ha. With highly weathered, acid soils of very low natural fertility, Ferralsols (mostly Oxisols and Ultisols), with a well defined dry season going from May to September and with the occurrence of dry spells of variable length during the rainy season (veranicos), the area was once considered to be marginal for agricultural production. However, it is in this area that the greatest revolution in the Brazilian agriculture is taking place.

The Cerrado area currently accounts for 43 percent of the Brazilian production of beef cattle, 23 percent of the coffee, 34 percent of the rice, 59 percent of the soybeans and 29 percent of the maize. In addition, there are 12 million hectares planted with other annual and perennial crops and 50 million hectares of natural and improved pastures. This has been made possible by years of research in different agronomic science disciplines. In particular, strategies have been developed for building-up soil fertility by the use of lime and mineral fertilizers, especially phosphorus, potassium and micronutrients. The estimated production potential of the Cerrado region is 252 million annual tonnes of grains, 12 million tonnes of meat and 90 million tonnes of perennial crop produce, on an area of 136 million hectares with 71 million hectares available for environmental conservation (Macedo, 1995).

Another important aspect is the substitution, mainly during the last two decades of the traditional plough and disk cultivation for annual crops with the “no-till” system. There are many advantages of no-till cultivation for tropical agriculture. These include a reduction of soil erosion, a greater efficiency in water use and absorption and a decrease in the incidence of pests due to the adoption of crop rotations. In addition, the no-till system emits eight times less greenhouse effect gases compared with the conventional system of ploughing and disking (Robertson, 2000). The current estimates are that close to 40 percent of the area of grain crops in Brazil, about 25 million hectares, is already cultivated using no-till systems (Figure 5).

Source: Federação Brasileira de Plantio Direto na Palha (FEBRAPDP), 2003.

Crop yields in Brazil are satisfactory for the export crops (71.4 t/ha for sugar cane, 22.3 t/ha for citrus, 1.1 t/ha for coffee, and 2.6 t/ha for soybeans in 2002). The use of agricultural technologies, including the use of appropriate rates of mineral fertilizers, is widespread on these crops. However, the average yields of basic food crops for domestic consumption are low: 3.3 t/ha for rice, 0.7 t/ha for common beans, 3.2 t/ha for maize, and 13.7 t/ha for cassava. Nevertheless, even in the case of these crops, many farmers obtain, by the rational adoption of technologies already available, high yields of the order of 8 t/ha for irrigated rice, 3.5 t/ha for irrigated common beans, 10 t/ha for maize, and 40 t/ha for cassava.

TABLE 7
Crop areas and yields by region (2002)

Source: ANDA, 2003.

Hence agricultural technologies that can lead to substantial yield increases of the basic food crops are available but they need to be implemented. This is not relevant for large farmers, since these farmers are in any case anxious to use these technologies. Many large farmers pay consultants in order to have all possible technologies implemented on their farms. The issue is much more critical for subsistence or family farming systems, especially the small rural producers who are not members of agricultural cooperatives. This problem is particularly acute on small farms located in the North and Northeast regions, where, as a consequence of the running-down of the official agricultural extension service, simple technologies that can have a large impact on food crop yields are not used. As shown in Table 6, an agricultural census of 1995/1996 revealed that only 4.1 percent of the farmers in the Northeast region, where the largest number of small farms in the country is concentrated, had some kind of advice from the official rural extension service.

Crop areas and average yields in the different regions of the country are shown in Table 7.