In February, harvest forecast for 2018 is 5.6% lower than that of 2017
March 08, 2018 09h00 AM | Last Updated: March 08, 2018 01h19 PM
The second estimate for the agricultural production in 2018, related to February, dropped 5.6% in relation to the 2017 harvest, representing a reduction of 13.4 million tonnes. The result forecast this month is of 227.2 million tonnes. The data came from the Systematic Survey of Agricultural Production, released today by the IBGE.
The drop was mainly influenced by the reductions of 1.6% in the soybeans harvest, 13.5% in corn and 5.7% in rice. Compared with January, the February forecast changed 0.5%, which represents 1.1 million tonnes in absolute terms.
Despite the drop in relation to 2017, IBGE researcher Carlos Antônio Barradas states that, in 2018, it is expected to harvest the second biggest crop of the time series started in 1975.
"2017 was quite atypical, since it benefited from outstanding climate conditions. It hit the record of the agricultural production. Climate should not help that much in 2018. Even so, good figures are still expected", explains him.
In the February forecast, Mato Grosso remains leading the national output of grains, with a share of 25.1%, followed by Paraná (17.6%) and Rio Grande do Sul (14.6%), which, altogether, account for 57.3% of the harvest.
