Farmland price cycles in Brazil

Abstract

This paper aims to analyze the cycles in the agricultural land prices in Brazil, paying attention to the differences among their uses as well as their regional differences. First, the land use in Brazil is analyzed and the use for agriculture is pointed out. Different sources of land prices in Brazil are compared and both FGV-RJ and FNP dataset are chosen to complete the analyses. The first one allows identifying cycles in agricultural land prices in Brazil from June 1977 through December 2013, and we are facing the uptrend phase of the last land price cycle. However, North and West- Center regions are finishing this uptrend, despite the other three regions are still having land price increase. FNP dataset shows sugar cane land price have facing larger increase since 2002, despite the lower profits of sugar and ethanol sector. Also, lands suitable for planting grains have huge increase in their prices and they reach the highest value in the Southern region