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This article provides information about the Contribution of Agricultural and Forest Product on Brazilian Economy !
Until the beginning of the 20th century, the Brazilian economy was characterised by a succession of cycles, each of them based on the exploitation of a single export commodity: timber (Brazil wood) in the first years of colonisation; sugarcane in the 16th and 17th centuries; precious metals (gold and silver) and gems (diamonds and emeralds) in the 18th century; and finally, coffee in the 19th century.
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Slave labour was used for production, a situation that continued until the last quarter of the 19th century. Paralleling these cycles, small-scale agriculture and cattle farming were developed for local consumption.
The first surge of industrialisation took place during the years of World War I, but it was only from the 1930s onwards that Brazil reached a level of modern economic performance. In the 1940s, the first steel plant was built in the state of Rio de Janeiro at Volta Redondo with US Exim bank financing.
The 1970s saw a general rise in the number of agricultural products exported. Soyabeans outpaced Brazil’s traditional agricultural earners – coffee, cocoa, and sugar. The volume, value, and variety of semi- processed and manufactured agricultural products increased substantially, largely as a result of government incentives favouring processed goods over raw crops. Agriculture in the 1980s continued to play a significant role in the country’s economy, but no longer did a single crop dominate in the way sugar, coffee, or rubber had at their peaks.
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Through fiscal incentives and special credit facilities, the Federal Government strongly promoted greater efficiency in rural areas. Furthermore, efforts were made to alter the movement of people from rural communities to urban areas by extending equal social benefits, establishing rational schemes for agrarian reform, stimulating hitherto uneconomical smallholdings and, in general, improving the quality of life in areas that are quite remote from the main centres. Increases in agricultural productivity have been greater than the population growth.
This has permitted Brazilian farmers not only to produce more for the domestic market, but also to increase their exports. Today Brazil is still the world’s largest producer of coffee and sugar (from sugarcane), second among the cocoa producers, and fourth among tobacco growers. The various programmes undertaken in the last two decades to promote diversification of crops have borne impressive results.
The production of grains has grown consistently, including wheat, rice, corn and particularly soyabeans. Agriculture accounts for 13% of the country’s GDP. Crop production accounts for about 90% of the total agricultural output. The remaining 10% of the agricultural economy involves livestock activities, mainly the production of beef, poultry, pork, milk and eggs.
Forest products, especially rubber (once a vital element in Brazilian exports), as well as Brazil nuts, cashews, waxes and fibres now come mostly from cultivated plantations and no longer from wild forest trees as before. Because of its wide climatic range, Brazil produces almost every kind of fruit, from tropical varieties in the north (various nuts and avocados) to an enormous output of citrus fruit and grapes in the temperate regions of the south. Brazil is the largest exporter of concentrated orange juice.