Agricultural Development in Brazil: The Rise of a Global Agro-food Power (Routledge Studies in Agricultural Economics)

In the last few decades, Brazilian agriculture has experienced a seismic transformation, and its contradictory facets have fed different and opposing narratives regarding recent changes. This book covers these changes, exploring the issues from several empirical and analytical angles, including the role of agriculture in the contemporary Brazilian economy, the dynamics of Brazilian agricultural value chains, environmental challenges and the processes of social differentiation.

Brazilian agriculture continues to be viewed in the international literature, either through the lenses of the past century – those of former problems relating to land use and land tenure – or apologetically. This collection of essays aims at updating the current interpretations, providing objective accounting of the main transformations, its determinants, results, contradictions and limitations. As it covers the most relevant traits of Brazilian agricultural and rural development, the book will provide the reader with an encompassing view of contemporary Brazilian agriculture, including the positive and negative sides of the so-called tropical agriculture revolution. It highlights the tremendous economic potential as well as the continuing structural heterogeneity, concentration of production and marginalization of millions of small farmers.

Written in an engaging and accessible style, this book will be perfect for all those interested in learning about Brazilian agriculture. It will be of particular interest to undergraduate and graduate students of economic development, agricultural economics, rural sociology, comparative economic development, rural development and agricultural policies.

Antônio Márcio Buainain is senior lecturer of Economics at the Institute of Economics at the University of Campinas (Unicamp), in Campinas, Brazil. He is also a researcher at the National Institute of Science and Technology on Public Policy, Strategies and Development and at the Center for Agricultural and Environmental Economics, Unicamp. His research areas are agricultural and rural development, including extensive work on innovation in agriculture, agrarian reform, rural poverty and agricultural policies in Brazil and Latin America.

Rodrigo Lanna is associate professor at the Institute of Economics, University of Campinas (Unicamp), Brazil. He is also a researcher at the Center for Agricultural and Environmental Economics, Unicamp. His research has focused on agricultural economics and finance and his current work on agricultural finance includes price and volatility analysis, risk management and credit issues in agriculture.

Zander Navarro is a senior researcher at the Brazilian Corporation for Agricultural Research (Embrapa), Brazil. A sociologist specializing in "rural social processes", he was previously a research fellow at the Institute of Development Studies, UK from 2003 to 2009.