Many of Brazil's cars are powered by it. The value of some of the crops is greatly increased by extra processing after harvest. Since the 1870s, the Brazilian government has encouraged farmers with a variety of incentives to grow these crops. Brazil has one of the largest herds of beef cattle in the world, between 140 and 150 million of them. Look at table .
Fish is an important food.
When Europeans started coming to Brazil in the 1500s, the native Indians used to trade the products of the forest in return for simple European tools. The trading was usually carried out at or near small ports on the Atlantic coast. Later, a succession of other crops began to be traded, each of them dominating the economy for a period. For a time, Brazil became the most important producer of each of these crops and people moved into new areas of the country to cultivate or gather them. Spectacular growth followed and lots of money made.