Recent path of Brazilian agricultural funding and finance

Abstract

Brazilian agriculture showed an important increase since the mid-1990s. This phenomenon has been the subject of debate that aims to understand which aspects led to this dynamic. Several authors point out to the importance of the impact of rural financing, public and private, on the growth of the agricultural sector. Some studies, in particular, have linked the recent expansion of Brazilian agriculture to the growth in the availability of official credit for the sector. Due this, this work highlight the rural credit policies as an important determinant for the development of agriculture, in the way that provides producers with access to resources for funding, investment and marketing. However, this work brings a broader approach to agricultural financing, because it includes within the discussion the expenses with the equalizations policies of the Treasury made by the federal government for agricultural policies. This paper adopted bibliographic and documentary research as a methodological procedure, consulting authors who are references in the topic addressed, in addition to public databases. The results of the work show that rural credit expanded significantly between 1999 and 2014, growing at an average rate around 20%. In relation to the equalization policy, the resources for this purpose grew, between 1999 and 2017, by 523% in real terms. This expansion of the supply of resources to the agricultural sector contributed to the capitalization of the sector’s producers. However, it is important to mention that there are problems with the concentration of these resources, as well as distortion of policy goals.