Study shows Brazilian agribusiness feeds more than 772 million people worldwide

A study by EMBRAPA’s Secretariat of Intelligence and Strategic Relations (SIRE), released on Thursday, March 4, points out that Brazilian agribusiness provided food to 772.6 million people in 2020.

According to the publication, 212.2 million of these people are from Brazil and the other 560.4 million are from other countries.

“The variation in the total population fed by Brazil in 2019, of 809.5 million compared to the 772.6 million fed in 2020 is due to the variation in product prices in the two years considered. Thus, it can be said that around 800 million people are fed by Brazil, including the Brazilian population”, say the authors.

According to the survey, in the last ten years, Brazil’s participation in the world food market jumped from US$ 20.6 billion to US$ 100 billion. The main products exported were meat, soy, corn, cotton, and forest products.

As a result, the expectation is that the country’s contribution to global supply will increase in the coming years.

The study

To quantify Brazil’s contribution to world food, the study considered the production of grains and oilseeds since they are staple foods for various populations in the world and also considered basic for the production of animal protein.

For this, the researchers performed two calculations. The first calculation is based on the physical production of grains. The second calculation adds to this physical production its respective monetary value, based on international prices.

In the accounts, the researchers carried out the conversion of beef into grains, based on the fact that their production takes place in the pasture.

“We converted this export to grain equivalent and quantified how many people are fed this meat. This is the second alternative in the study,” explains Elisio Contini, one of the researchers involved in the study.

“In the first alternative, based on physical production, data from the International Grains Council (IGC) were used, subtracting grain imports from Brazil”, say the authors.

“From the production data, the percentage of the Brazilian production of these grains in relation to the world was established. With data from the world population, it was possible to quantify the number of people that Brazil can feed, based on its participation in world production of grain and oilseeds”, they detail.

From this, the researchers understood that Brazil’s participation in world grain production grew from 6% in 2011, to 8% in 2020.

In the second method, scholars have multiplied international prices with the production each year. They then calculate the proportion in relation to the total, as in the previous estimate.

With that, they reached the figure of 772.6 million people supplied by Brazilian production in 2020.

Source: G1

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