The agricultural sector in Brazil is historically one of the principal bases of Brazil's economy. In 2024, Brazil was the second-biggest grain exporter in the world, with 19% of the international market share, and the fourth overall grain producer. Brazil is also the world's largest exporter of many popular agriculture commodities like coffee, soybeans, organic honey, beef, poultry, cane sugar, soybean meal, açai berry, orange juice, yerba mate, cellulose, tobacco, and the second biggest exporter of cotton, corn, pork, and ethanol. The country also has a significant presence as producer and exporter of rice, wheat, eggs, refined sugar, soybean oil, cocoa, beans, nuts, cassava, sisal fiber, and diverse fruits and vegetables.

The southern one-half to two-thirds of Brazil has a semi-temperate climate, higher rainfall, more fertile soil, more advanced technology and input use, adequate infrastructure and more experienced farmers. This region produces most of Brazil's grains, oilseeds, and agriculture exports.

The drought-ridden northeast region and Amazon basin lack well-distributed rainfall, good soil, adequate infrastructure and development capital. Although mostly occupied by subsistence farmers, both regions are increasingly important as exporters of forest products, cocoa and tropical fruits. This geographic disparity in agricultural development has been compounded by unequal land ownership. This structural condition has influenced rural social movements throughout Brazil's modern history. Central Brazil contains substantial areas of grassland. Brazilian grasslands are far less fertile than those of North America, and are generally suited only for grazing.

Extreme weather events like drought, linked with deforestation and climate change, increasingly impact Brazilian agriculture. Experts consider a forest-friendly economy the best method to sustain the Brazilian agricultural sector, because deforestation presents severe dangers to it.

Brazil's agricultural production in 2018 In 2018, Brazil:

It was by far the largest world producer of sugarcane (746.8 million tons). The 2nd place, India, produces about half of Brazil's production (376.9 million tons). Brazil uses much of the cane to produce ethanol, in addition to exporting a lot of sugar. It was the 2nd largest world producer of soy (117.8 million tons), second only to the United States. However, Brazil surpassed US soybean production in 2020.; It was the 3rd largest world producer of maize (82.2 million tons), third only to the US and China; It was the 5th largest world producer of cassava (17.6 million tons), fifth only to Nigeria, Thailand, Congo and Ghana; It was the largest world producer of orange (16.7 million tons); It was the 9th largest world producer of rice (11.7 million tons); It was the 3rd largest world producer of banana (6.7 million tons), third only to India and China. If we also consider the plantains, Brazil is the 7th largest producer; It produced 5.4 million tons of wheat; It was the 4th largest world producer of cotton (4.9 million tons), losing only to India, USA and China; It was the 10th largest world producer of tomato (4.1 million tons); It produced 3.6 million tons of potato; It was the world's largest producer of coffee (3.5 million tons); It was the largest world producer of guaraná (3.3 million tons); Produced 3.2 million tons of legume; It was the 3rd largest world producer of beans (2.9 million tons), third only to Myanmar and India; It was the 3rd largest world producer of pineapple (2.6 million tons), only to Costa Rica and the Philippines; It was the 5th largest world producer of coconut (2.3 million tons), losing to Indonesia, the Philippines, India and Sri Lanka; It was the 4th largest world producer of watermelon (2.3 million tons), losing to China, Iran and Turkey; It was the 7th largest world producer of sorghum (2.2 million tons); It was the 7th largest world producer of mango (including mangosteen and guava) (1.9 million tons); It was the 14th largest world producer of grape (1.6 million tons); It was the 14th largest world producer of onion (1.5 million tons); Produced 1.5 million tons of palm oil; It was the 5th largest world producer of lemon (1.4 million tons), losing to India, Mexico, China and Argentina; It was the largest world producer of açaí (1.3 million tons); It was the 13th largest world producer of apple (1.1 million tons); It was the 2nd largest world producer of papaya (1 million tons), second only to India; Produced 996 thousand tons of tangerine; Produced 897 thousand tons of oats; It was the 2nd largest world producer of tobacco (762 thousand tons), second only to China; It produced 741 thousand tons of sweet potato; It was the 14th largest world producer of peanut (563 thousand tons); It produced 546 thousand tons of yerba mate; It produced 330 thousand tons of barley; It was the 6th largest world producer of cocoa (239 thousand tons); It was the 6th largest world producer of avocado (235 thousand tons); Produced 199 thousand tons of natural rubber; It was the 6th largest world producer of persimmon (156 thousand tons); It was the 9th largest world producer of cashew nuts (141 thousand tons); It produced 135 thousand tons of sunflower; It was the largest world producer of Brazil nuts (36 thousand tons);

In addition to smaller productions of other agricultural products.

History

Early farming

Pre-Columbian Indigenous peoples lived in the Amazon for 10,000 years before European arrival and evidence shows their presence 12,000 years before present day. Cultivation of the Amazon Basin by Indigenous peoples was carried out for millenniums before Europeans arrived over 500 years ago. Historical cultivation of Manioc, squash, guava, beans pequi, palm fruits, lerén, maize, and rice have been documented in the Amazon Basin between 4,000 and 10,400 years ago.

Following the arrival of Columbus to the Americas, the Jesuits, members of a branch of Catholicism landed in the Amazon in 1549 CE. From 1580 to 1640 CE the Jesuits enslaved Brazil's native Tupí tribes and forced them to collect cacao from the wild to fund the Jesuit endeavors. Structured cacao farming was introduced later in the 1660s and was dependent on Indigenous and African slave labor. Collection of wild cacao fell out of use as cacao plantations brought in more money and by the 1700s Indigenous workers were charged with planting and maintaining 40,000 cacao trees in Brazil by Jesuit force.

During the 1970s and 1980s approximately 10 million hectares of deforestation took place to make way for cattle farming. This action was combined with high rates of violence and mass dislocation of Native populations. Official reports claim that authorities in Brazil murdered over 8,350 Indigenous people throughout this time.

Fires Fire was used by Indigenous Brazilians as a land management tool for thousands of years. After European arrival around 1500, The Portuguese Crown's sesmaria grant system distributed vast landholdings to a limited number of colonial elite. This allocation of land to settlers led to concentrated ownership of large estates known as latifúndios. Once land was divided, settlers began monocropping and adopting burning far more aggressively than had been practiced under Indigenous land management. The combination of burning with these new farming practices decimated native flora.

International problems Brazilian coffee production exceeded global demand at the beginning of the 20th century. This resulted in the Taubaté Agreement, where the State began acquiring surplus for destruction and planting seedlings was forbidden—with the goal of maintaining a minimum profitable price.BAER, Werner: A Economia Brasileira, Nobel, São Paulo, 2nd ed, 2003, ,

Rubber suffered from foreign competition. In 1870, English smugglers smuggled rubber tree seedlings out of Brazil and in 1895 began production in Asia. In the 1910s and 1920s this competition practically eliminated Brazilian production.

Agronomy schools

In 1887 during the Empire era, the first school dedicated to the training of agronomists opened in the city of Cruz das Almas. In 1883, in Pelotas, Rio Grande do Sul, a second school opened.

The first school was officially recognized thirty-five years after its creation, with Decree 8.319/1910. The agronomist profession only came to be recognized in 1933. Seventy regular agronomy colleges operate in Brazil. The day the decree was publicized, 12 October, became the "Day of the Agronomist".

Professional registration is managed by Regional Engineering and Architecture Councils, integrated at the national level by CONFEA. Educational activity is supported by the Federation of Brazilian Agronomy Students.

Diversification: 1960–1990

The Brazilian Enterprise for Agricultural Research (EMBRAPA) was established during the military regime in 1973 with the objective of diversifying production. The body was responsible for the support of new crops, adapted to the country's diverse regions. The expansion of agricultural borders towards the Cerrado had begun, and of monocultural latifundia with production at a semi-industrial scale of soybeans, cotton and beans. Czech-Brazilian researcher Johanna Döbereiner helped lead Brazil's Green Revolution, winning her the UNESCO Science Prize for her work on nitrogen-fixing microorganisms.

In 1960, four main agricultural products were exported, growing by the early 1990s to nineteen. Brazil also moved "downstream" to expand post-harvest processing. In the 1960s, unprocessed goods made up 84% of total exports, falling to 20% by 1990.

Agricultural promotion policies included subsidized credits, bank debt write-offs and export subsidies (in some cases, reaching 50% of the product value).

Pink Tide The pink tide refers to a period of "left-leaning" politics in Latin America throughout the 21st century. For many countries this led to a period of "developmentalism" politics, designed by Raúl Prebisch in the 1950s at the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean. This economic philosophy centered reducing primary specializations, such as agricultural exports, in favor of important substitution industrialization. However, unlike many other countries in Latin America, when Brazil exited its military dictatorship, it's "pink tide" economic philosophy was more neoliberal in nature, focusing on reprimerization, including its agricultural commodities.

Mechanization: 1990s

Beginning with the 1994 creation of Plano Real for monetary stabilization, Brazilian agriculture went through a radical transformation: the State cut subsidies and the market began to finance agriculture, leading to the replacement of manpower with machines. Brazil's rural population fell from 20,700,000 in 1985 to 17,900,000 in 1995, followed by a decrease in import taxes on inputs and other measures that forced Brazilian producers to adapt to global practices. The rise of productivity, mechanization (with reduction of costs) and professionalization marked that period.

Agrotechnology Brazil's sugarcane cultivation has largely been for sugar production, but in the more recent decades it has been utilized for ethanol production. The global focus on sustainable energy production, has led to the expansion of biofuel crops such as sugarcane. Brazil has had an extremely attractive market for ethanol production due to their sugarcane genomics program which led to biotechnology startups and agro-biotech companies from across the globe to locate in the country.

Irrigation

The first irrigation experiments in Brazil occurred in Rio Grande do Sul, for cultivating rice. The first record dates to 1881 with the construction of the Cadro dam which began in 1903. However, the practice broadened in the last thirty years of the 20th century between the years 1970 to 1980.