page_title: Agriculture in Brazil
section_title: Early farming
hierarchical_section_title: Agriculture in Brazil / History / Early farming
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: Brazilian Natives ("Indians") began farming some 12,000 years ago. They farmed cassava, peanuts, tobacco, sweet potatoes and maize, in addition to extracting the essence from other local plants such as the pequi and the babassu. Production was for food, straw or madeira.  They cultivated local fruits such as jabuticaba, cashews, Spondias mombin and Goiabas.
  The Indians both influenced and were influenced by the Europeans who arrived in the fifteenth century. The Portuguese "nourished themselves with wood-flour, slaughtered the big game to eat, packed their nets and imitated the rough, free life" in the words of Pedro Calmon.
  Until other crops began to be exported, brazilwood was the main reason Portugal wanted control in Brazil.
caption: Brazilian fruits in a painting by Albert Eckhout.
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