Current situation of the corn seed market for the 2021/2022 harvest
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Despite being impacted by Covid-19, the Brazilian agribusiness job market has proven resilient in recent years. The health crisis, which began at the end of the first quarter of 2020, even increased the fragility of the sector and intensified movements observed before the pandemic, but the employed population (PO) showed signs of recovery from the third quarter of 2020 onwards.
As evidenced by the Macroeconomia/Cepea team, in the third quarter of 2021 (3Q2021), Brazilian agribusiness employed more than 18,9 million people, reaching a share of 20,3% in the total jobs generated in the economy. This result reflects a growth of 3,6%, or almost 653 thousand people, compared to the previous quarter (2Q2021); and 10,2%, or almost 1,76 million people, compared to 3Q2020 (BARROS et al., 2021). It is noteworthy that this movement was stronger than simply recovery, which should reflect the good agribusiness situation observed since 2020.
Among the agribusiness segments, emphasis is given to agriculture, which saw an expansion of 9,5%, or more than 763 thousand people, compared to 3Q2020; and growth of 2,0%, or 173,18 thousand people, compared to 2Q2021 (BARROS et al., 2021). Since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, the segment, when it did not lead the growth of PO, was responsible for maintaining or sustaining the level of employment in the sector (it presented smaller relative job losses).
Typically, despite monitoring the level of education and an analysis by gender, the Macroeconomics/Cepea team focuses on measuring the amount of agricultural OP. However, as highlighted by Silva et al. (2021), the identification of the effective quantity of the work input must consider both quantity and quality. Conventionally, the first is measured by the number of workers employed, and the second, by the productivity of an hour of work, taking into account the effects of the accumulation of education and experience, that is, of human capital, according to the Mincer's perspective, according to which there is a relationship between income and marginal labor productivity, which helps to explain wage differences between demographic groups, in addition to other attributes.
In this context, what do we know about the quality of Brazilian agricultural work? To answer this question, we calculated the Brazilian Agricultural Work Quality Index (IQT Agro) for the period between 1Q2012 and 3Q2021, using as a basis the indicator proposed by Silva et al. (2021). Basically, despite having some limitations, what is behind the construction of this Index is the estimation of Mincerian wage determination equations, initially structured to measure the impact of education on labor income. Thus, this indicator is constructed from the chain of growth rates in the quality of work, quarterly, starting from the base period, 1Q2012, equal to 100. These are calculated based on information from the labor market, education and experience of the population, available in the National Household Sample Survey, PNAD-Contínua.
Figure 1 shows the IQT Agro and the IQT Brazil (for comparison) considering hours usually worked between 2012Q1 and 2021Q3. Despite presenting some contrary movements, an increasing trajectory of the Indices can be noted, with the IQT Agro registering an increase of 19,52% and the IQT Brasil, of 20,42% in the period analyzed. This result translates into average growth of 0,47% per year. and 0,49% p.t., respectively. In this way, the Index demonstrates an improvement in the composition of the PO during the period, despite the fact that, at various times, the improvement in the IQT is related to the greater relative participation of the most qualified demographic groups as a result of the lower PO of low qualifications. These are those who suffer most from the loss of jobs in periods of economic slowdown and recession.
In Table 1, the distribution of PO is presented depending on the years of education of individuals in 2012, 2019 and 2021. It is observed that, both for agriculture and for Brazil as a whole, there was an increase in the proportion of workers in categories with more years of education to the detriment of those with less education. This dynamic corroborates the behavior of IQTs, for Brazil and for agriculture, in the sense that there was an average increase in workers' education.
Furthermore, despite presenting similar dynamics, it is observed that the composition of the agricultural PO is concentrated in the categories with less education, while the Brazilian PO is concentrated in the categories with longer years of study (more than 12 years). This distribution, especially in agriculture, has changed over the years, with categories with higher years of education gaining representation, as has been monitored by the Macroeconomia/Cepea team over the years. This result also reinforces the finding that there was an improvement in the quality of work in the sector during the period analyzed, due to the greater qualification of the PO.
The change becomes more evident when considering the most recent period. Specifically, from 1Q2020 onwards – highlighted as Pandemic in Figure 1 –, IQT Agro presents atypical behavior, a result of the impacts of the pandemic on the segment's job market. As highlighted by the Macroeconomia/Cepea team in the report for 2Q2020, the declining behavior of PO in Brazilian agriculture was not very unusual, given the downward trend in jobs in the segment (BARROS et al., 2020). However, the reduction observed at that time was a drop of high magnitude, when compared to previous ones, which, at least in part, were related to the covid-19 crisis and its consequences on the job market. Additionally, less qualified or more vulnerable workers were more affected by unemployment throughout this period, which reinforces the behavior of the Index.
From 1Q2021 onwards, a reversal of the growth trajectory was observed, with IQT Agro showing successive reductions. This result is linked to the good situation in Brazilian agribusiness, which translated into more jobs for the agricultural segment. Furthermore, there is an increase in the relative participation of the least qualified demographic groups compared to the most qualified (in 2021, the distribution of PO according to years of schooling was close to the levels observed in 2019 – see Table 1). That said, it is evident that the recent process of change in the profile of workers in the sector contributed to explaining the behavior of IQT Agro, corroborating the Agribusiness Labor Market monitoring reports by the Macroeconomia/Cepea team (BARROS et al., 2021).
Finally, it is highlighted that, although the dynamics of IQT Brasil and IQT Agro are similar in the period analyzed, there is still a gap in productivity (measured by hourly wages), which can be seen when compared with the market average. work as a whole. This difference helps explain the lower remuneration in the sector.
Logically, the methodology has limitations, however, in the specialized literature there is a convergence towards identifying the association between education, experience and quality of the workforce (SILVA et al., 2021). Despite the limitations, the relevance of indicators, such as the IQT, for measuring productivity in the labor market is recognized. With this in mind, the construction, implementation and monitoring of IQT Agro, currently in its initial phases, will allow us to monitor the impact of this variable on productivity in the segment's labor market.
for its Felipe Miranda de Souza Almeida, Researcher in the macroeconomics area at Cepea (cepea@usp.br)
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