According to the Ministry of Agriculture, which disclosed the Agricultural and Livestock Plan this Monday, commercial agriculture should receive 100 billion reais (US$ 53 billion), whereas family farming should receive 16 billion reais (US$ 8.5 billion).
In the 2009/2010 crop, commercial farming received US$ 49 billion and family farming, US$ 8 billion. One of the highlights of the plan is the creation of Low Carbon Emission Agriculture, which should receive 2 billion reais (US$ 1.1 billion) for the financing of technology to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, like the system for crop-livestock-forestry integration.
The 2010/2011 Agriculture and Livestock Plan should be announced by president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and by Agriculture minister Wagner Rossi. It should be disclosed at the headquarters of the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa), in Brasília.
Among the main measures are: expansion of the volume of rural credit, better market access and financing to middle farmers, incentives to technology in the country that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and the transfer of funds to increase the storage capacity in farms.
Labs Get Money
Agricultural laboratories linked to the Brazilian Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply are going to receive 46 million Brazilian reais (US$ 25 million) this year. According to information disclosed at the ministry’s website, out of that total, 9 million reais (US$ 4.9 million) will be allocated to investment, and the remainder will cover expenses.
According to the Ministry of Agriculture, in the last three years, 140 million reais (US$ 76 million) were allocated to the laboratories, located in the states of Goiás, Minas Gerais, Pará, Pernambuco, Rio Grande do Sul, and São Paulo, and to 878 public and private labs accredited by the government.
According to the general coordinator of Laboratory Support at the Agricultural Defense Secretariat, Jorge Caetano, the network is growing due to the rising Brazilian agricultural output and exports. “The objective is a continual increase in the quality of laboratory analyses of products of animal and vegetable origin before they reach the consumers,” he stated.
The number of analyses grew by 168.6%, over the last five years, having gone from 8.6 million in 2005 to 23.1 million in 2009. The laboratories count on 485 federal agricultural inspectors, including agronomists, veterinarians, chemist and pharmacists, and 548 undergraduate and graduate employees, who operate in 16 different fields.
Trade Balance
The Brazilian trade balance posted a surplus of US$ 1.145 billion in the first week of June, which had only three working days due to the Corpus Christi holiday. During the period, the average per working day was US$ 381.7 million.
Up until the 6th this month, exports totaled US$ 3.202 billion, and US$ 75.295 billion year-to-date. Imports so far this month totaled US$ 2.057 billion, and US$ 68.533 billion from January until June.
Year-to-date, the trade surplus is US$ 6.762 billion, and the average per working day is US$ 64.4 million, a 35.1% decline compared with the same period of last year.