Publication: Agriculture Productivity Growth in Brazil: Recent Trends and Future Prospects
Date
2017-09-24
ISSN
Published
2017-09-24
Author(s)
Abstract
The industrialization process in Brazil
begun in the 1960s and intensified in the 1970s, however the
expected productivity growth of the overall economy and
structural transformation did not happen. Since the end of
the 1970s, the Brazilian labor productivity has been lower
than many similar economies, currently representing around
one fourth of the average labor productivity in Organization
for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries.
One of the reasons for the weak productivity performance of
the Brazilian economy in the past decades has been the
manufacturing sector. Between 2000-2013, agriculture
productivity rose by 105.6 percent, compared to only 11.7
percent in the services sector and -5.5 percent in the
manufacturing sector. This report will focus mainly on
policies related to key production factors (such as human,
physical, and natural capital) and agriculture policies. The
motivation for this report is to explore the evolution and
source of the strong agriculture productivity growth that
has occurred in Brazil in recent decades, identifying
opportunities and challenges for future development of the
sector. The goal is to look for opportunities to accelerate
agriculture productivity growth, to have an increased impact
on sector growth, jobs, environmental sustainability, and
poverty reduction, as well as potentially to shed light on
lessons that can contribute to efforts to boost productivity
in other sectors within Brazil. The report is divided into
five sections. Section one give introduction; section two
describes the evolution and sources of agriculture
productivity growth in recent years; section three evaluates
the contributions of different factors of production, such
as natural, human, and physical capital; section four
explores the opportunities for further maximizing
agriculture growth in Brazil through increases in
productivity; and section five presents conclusions and
policy recommendations on how to further maximize
agriculture productivity in Brazil while having positive
social (poverty reduction and jobs) and environmental impacts.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Arias, Diego; Vieira, Pedro Abel; Contini, Elisio; Farinelli, Barbara; Morris, Michael. 2017. Agriculture Productivity Growth in Brazil: Recent Trends and Future Prospects. © World Bank, Washington, DC. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/32202 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”