Traditionally known as world’s leading coffee supplier Brazil has considerably increased its agrarian potential during the last 20 years. It has become a champion in beef, sugar, and soy beans export. After having looked on the last trends it becomes obvious that the country has most approached the same achievements in pig production.

There are plenty of resources for this. Today Brazil has 264 million hectares of agricultural land, which is 1.7 times more than European Union has. Agricultural enterprises that occupy 100 000 hectares of land are quite usual for the country. Due to climate peculiarities Brazilian agrarians are lucky to gather harvest twice a year. Besides, undeniable advantage of the country is that it has almost 100 million hectares of previously undisturbed land at a time when the demand for feedstuff has been increasing. It is planned to reclaim 30 million hectares of these land by 2030.

Beef husbandry is one of the most developed branches of the economy of Brazil. It was represented only by cattle breeding not so long ago. In 1950s Brazil produced 329 thousand tons of pork it was only 1% from world’s production, in that time China produced 14 %( 2.2 million tons), USA – 30 %( 4.6 million tons) and was the leader.

Brazil has made a real breakthrough in pig production during the last 10 years, and it’s due to powerful investments and balanced state policy. In 2002 pork export has increased by impressive 270 % (600 thousand tons), comparing with 2000. It let the country rank fourth among the world’s leading pig producers: 3 % of world’s pork production belongs to Brazil as well as 11 % of export.

The development of Brazilian pig production was not steady; the pig branch suffered gross decrease because there was overproduction in 2003 and foot and mouth disease eruption. According to ABIPECS comments Brazil has increased pork export more than competitor –countries on the average, despite the rise of competition, increased subsidies in EU countries and sanitary compartments.

70 countries of the world import Brazilian pork. Although pig producers try to find new markets, Russia, Ukraine and Hong Kong remain the main directions for exports of Brazilian pork .

You can read more in the magazine publication “Profitable pig production” № 1, March 2011.