ABSTRACT
Brazil is a huge country, covering 846 million hectares (ha). Of this area, 57 million ha (7 per cent) is arable land, 197 million ha (23 per cent) is grassland and 8 million ha (1 per cent) is classified as other agricultural land, mainly perennial crops (2005 data). The remainder of the country, 468 million ha (57 per cent), is natural area, mainly forests. Over the past decades Brazil has made use of its agricultural potential to become one of the world’s largest exporters of agricultural commodities. It has become the largest exporter of sugar, ethanol, beef, poultry meat, coffee, orange juice and tobacco, and the second largest exporter of soybeans in the world.
