page_title: Agriculture in Brazil
section_title: Midwest
hierarchical_section_title: Agriculture in Brazil / Agribusiness / Regions / Midwest
caption_attribution_description: Plantação de alho, em Catalão, Goiás
context_page_description: The agriculture of Brazil is historically one of the principal bases of Brazil's economy. While its initial focus was on sugarcane, Brazil eventually became the world's largest exporter of coffee, soybeans, beef, and crop-based ethanol.
  The success of agriculture during the Estado Novo, with Getúlio Vargas, led to the expression, "Brazil, breadbasket of the world".
  As of 2009, Brazil had about 106,000,000 hectares of undeveloped fertile land – a territory larger than the combined area of France and Spain.
  According to a 2008 IBGE study, despite the world financial crisis, Brazil had record agricultural production, with growth of 9.1%, principally motivated by favorable weather. The production of grains in the year reached an unprecedented 145,400,000 tons. That record output employed an additional 4.8% in planted area, totalling 65,338,000 hectares and producing $148 billion Reals. The principal products were corn and soy.
  The southern one-half to two-thirds of Brazil has a semi-temperate climate, higher rainfall, more fertile soil, more advanced technology and input use, adequate infrastructure and more experienced farmers. This region produces most of Brazil's grains, oilseeds.
context_section_description: The Midwest region includes Mato Grosso, Mato Grosso do Sul, Goiás and Distrito Federal. This region's agriculture developed much later than the rest of the country, but it's the region that most grows in productivity. The region is one of the largest producers in the world of soybeans, corn and sugar cane, in addition to a large production of tomato, beans, cotton and sorghum, also producing cassava.
  Over three decades its harvest grew from 4.2 million to 49.3 million tons in 2008. Its cultivated area in 2008 was 15.1 million hectares. A big growth area was livestock. The opening of roads facilitated this growth. As of 2004 this region produced only 2.7% of the nation's horticulture.
  In 2020, the Midwest produced 46% of the country's cereals, vegetables and oilseeds: 111.5 million tons.
  In 2020, Mato Grosso was the leader in the national grain production, with 28.0%. Goiás (10.0%) was in 4th place, and Mato Grosso do Sul (7.9%) in 5th place.
  Goiás is the 2nd largest producer of sugarcane in the country, 11.3% of national production, with 75.7 million tons harvested in the 2019/20 harvest. Mato Grosso do Sul is in fourth place, with around 49 million tons harvested. Mato Grosso harvested 16 million tons, being in 6th place.
  Mato Grosso is the largest producer of soy in Brazil, with 26.9% of the total produced in 2020 (33.0 million tons), and the 3rd largest producer of beans, with 10.5% of Brazilian production.
  Goiás has the national leadership in the production of sorghum: it produced 44% of the Brazilian crop production in the 2019/2020 cycle, with a harvest of 1.09 million tons.
  In 2017, Mato Grosso was the largest producer of corn in the country with 58 million tons; fourth, Goiás, with 22 million.
  Goiás is also the Brazilian leader in tomato production: in 2019 it produced over 1.2 million tons, a third of the country's total production. 
  Mato Grosso is also the largest producer of cotton in Brazil, with around 65% of national production (1.8 out of the 2.8 million tons harvested in the country). Goiás is in 4th place.
  In cassava production, Brazil produced a total of 17.6 million tons in 2018. Mato Grosso do Sul was the 6th largest producer in the country, with 721 thousand tons. Mato Grosso produced 287 thousand tons. Goiás produced 201 thousand tons. 
  In 2019, Goiás became the leader of the Brazilian production of garlic.
caption: Irrigated garlic
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