SOYBEAN

Brazil is the second largest soybean producer in the world, behind only the USA. In the 2016/2017 harvest, the crop occupied an area of 33.89 million hectares, which totaled a production of 113.92 million tons. The average yield of Brazilian soybean was 3,362 kg per hectare.

In the world context of large grain crops, soybeans had the highest percentage of production growth since the 1970s. From 1970 to 2017, global soybean production increased by 7.98 times (44 Mt to 351 Mt) . In Brazil, production growth in the period was even more spectacular: 76 times (1.5 Mt in 1970 to 114 Mt in 2017 .The growth of the area has not been very different, according to the USDA. In the last decade (2006/07 to 2017/18) the global area cultivated with soybeans increased by 33.5% compared to 20.4% for maize and 4.7% for rice and wheat.

 

Soybean11 Soybean22 Soybean33 Soybean44 Soybean55 Soybean66 Soybean77 Soybean88 Soybean99 Soybean1010
javascript carousel by WOWSlider.com v8.8

 

The socioeconomic and technological revolution carried out by soybeans in Modern Brazil could be compared to the phenomenon of sugar cane and coffee, which in different periods from the 17th to the 20th centuries dominated the country's foreign trade.

The growth of soybean production, about 76 times in just 47 years, has determined an unprecedented chain of changes in Brazilian agricultural culture. It was the soybean, initially supported by wheat, which was responsible for the appearance of business agriculture in Brazil. It also supported or was responsible for accelerating the mechanization of Brazilian crops, for modernizing the transportation system, for expanding the agricultural frontier, for professionalizing and increasing international trade, for modifying and enriching the food diet of Brazilians, for to accelerate the urbanization of the country, to internalize the Brazilian population (excessively concentrated in the south, southeast and coast of the northeast), by technifying other crops (especially maize). Soy also boosted and decentralized the national agroindustry, sponsoring the equally spectacular expansion of meat production.

 

  

 

 

  

 

One of every four dollars exported by Brazilian agribusiness comes from soybeans. In the 2015/16 crop, only direct revenues generated from exports of the soybean complex brought to Brazil around US $ 30 billion, which added to the indirect benefits originated from the other links in this chain, exceeded US $ 100 billion. The leadership of soybeans in the exports of the Brazilian agro-industrial complex promises to remain, despite being threatened by the agroindustrial complex of meats. And meat, to be honest, is soy with added value.

The excellent prices of soybeans on the world market in the mid-1970s were the main cause of the rapid advance of their cultivation in the fields of the southern region, where introduced varieties of the USA showed good adaptation.

With the results of the 2017 harvest, Brazil accounts for about 32.5% of the current 351 Mt produced at the global level, consolidating itself as the second world producer of the oilseed and on the way to the leadership, in the next harvests.