Brazilian agriculture feeds 800 million people, says Embrapa study

Brazil's participation in the world food market jumped from 20,6 billion to 100 billion dollars in the last ten years, with emphasis on meat, soy, corn, cotton and forestry products. According to specialists from Embrapa, the data indicate that Brazil's contribution to world supply should increase even more in the coming years.

The information is part of the most recent study authored by Elisio Contini and Adalberto Aragão, from Embrapa's Secretariat of Intelligence and Strategic Relations (Sire) under the title “Brazilian Agriculture feeds 800 million people”. The complete study is available on the Agropensa System (available here). 

“It is important to know the contribution of Brazilian Agro to the availability of food for Brazilian society and the world. In terms of people fed, in demonstrations by authorities and technical work, the numbers ranged from 1 to 1,5 billion people. We decided to check these numbers, based on the production of grains and oilseeds in Brazil in relation to the world”, explains researcher Elísio Contini.

In this sense, the study adopted a method that considers the production of grains and oilseeds - basic foods of large populations in the world and also considered basic for the production of animal protein -, to quantify how much Brazilian agriculture contributes to the nutrition of people in Brazil and in the world.

“The hypothesis is that grains and oilseeds have been the basis of human nutrition, for direct consumption by people, processed foods or as input for feed for the production of the main meats”, state the authors of the work they adopted for execution calculation of the classification of "foods" used by the World Bank to prepare the Food Price Index. 

The “Food Price Index” considers the following cereals: rice, wheat, corn and barley; vegetable oils and cakes: soybean, soybean oil, soybean cake, palm oil, coconut oil and peanut oil; in addition to other foods: sugar, bananas, beef, poultry and oranges.

Two ways

The authors of the study carried out two calculations to arrive at the number of people that Brazil can feed in the world. The first is based on the physical production of grains and the second adds to this physical production its respective monetary value, based on international prices.

Another innovation in the work is the conversion of exported beef. “Since exported Brazilian beef is produced on pasture, we convert this export into grain equivalents and quantify how many people are fed by this meat. This is the second alternative of the study”, clarifies Contini.

For both alternatives, the number of people that Brazilian production can feed in the world, including Brazil, was calculated. For the authors, the second alternative is closer to the expected answer.

“In the first alternative, based on physical production, data from the International Grains Council (IGC) were used, subtracting grain imports made by Brazil. From the production data, the percentage of 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 the world production of grains and oilseeds”, detail the authors of the study.

As a result of this first calculation, the following conclusion was reached: in the period considered, Brazil's share in world grain production grew from 6% in 2011 to 8% in 2020.

“Thus, the people fed by Brazil in 2020 are the Brazilian population of 212,235 million people and another 424,687 million people in other countries, for their exports of grains, oilseeds and poultry and pork meat”, explain Contini and Aragão. .

For the second estimate, the authors used the following method: the population fed by Brazil was estimated no longer in the amount of production, but based on the international prices of the products, established by the IMF, multiplied by the physical production, each year. For this alternative, exported beef was transformed into grain equivalents. Then, their proportion was calculated in relation to the total, as previously performed.

“The data showed that Brazil, in 2020, provided food for 772,600 million people, with 212,235 of the Brazilian population and 560,365 million from other countries, through the export of grains and beef converted into grains. The change in the total population fed by Brazil in 2019 of 809,472 million compared to 2020 is due to the change 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”, state the authors.

Access the complete study, with the tables and indicators that provided the estimates, in the Agropensa System (available here).

*Text prepared based on information from the authors and the content of the article "Brazilian agriculture feeds 800 million people".