ECONOMY: AGRICULTURE, FORESTRY, LIVESTOCK AND FISHING

Although agriculture has a large arable area, it exploits only 7.7% of the total area. Furthermore, most of the land is occupied by commercial crops, while the area destined to food crops is relatively limited, whose productions are not sufficient for the needs of such a large population and must in part be imported. The situation is also the result of an old-fashioned agrarian system, in which large private property is still dominant and occupies most of the cultivated land; it is in many cases, as in the Northeast, of a static and unproductive land ownership, in others of modern companies in the richest plantation areas, such as in the areas of coffee, sugar cane, cotton. Among the food crops, cassava predominates, widely consumed together with potatoes and beans, maize and rice, grown in the irrigated areas of Goiás, Minas Gerais, São Paulo and Rio Grande do Sul; from the latter also comes mostly wheat, whose production is under development. Plantation crops are much more important, for many of which the country ranks at the very top of the world rankings. Coffee has its most suitable environment in the terra roxa highlands, which extend from São Paulo to Paraná; According to estatelearning, Brazil is still clearly in first place in the world. Cultivation of ancient settlement, even sugar cane represents a very important resource (in 2005 the first world producer). The panorama of oil plants is particularly varied, both cultivated such as soy (in 2005 it was the second largest producer in the world), peanuts, castor beans, flax, etc., and spontaneous ones such as oil palm, barbaçú palm , Bertholletia excelsa which gives the so-called Brazil nuts, etc. With its climatic varieties, the country is able to supply a very wide range of fruit: colossal production of bananas and citrus fruits, of which it is the first producer in the world, therefore of pineapples, coconuts, grapes; the production of sisal, which with jute completes the picture of textile plants. We still remember tea and especially tobacco, grown in the states of Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina and Bahia. § Great are the resources of the forests, which cover more than half of the national surface and are largely included in the Amazon basin. In it the Hevea finds its original environment; the gumiferous latex is also obtained from the palms. From the forest of the Atlantic façade come precious woods such as rosewood and cedar while from the pinheros del Sul, where the Paraná pine predominates, wood is obtained for work and for the paper industry; overall, Brazil is the fourth largest timber producer in the world. § The breeding is practiced on an eminently commercial basis in the vast spaces of the interior; Brazil has a rapidly expanding cattle herd (causing deforestation of areas of the Amazon basin) and among the most conspicuous in the world, while sheep and goats have less weight, in addition to horses, used mainly in the Northeast. Widespread is the breeding of pigs and poultry. § Finally, the fish (cod, lobster, shrimp, crab) is of great importance.

ECONOMY: TRADE AND COMMUNICATIONS

Foreign trade is continuously and rapidly growing, even though the volume of trade appears to diminish after a long period of surplus.. In 1995, imports were about two and a half times, in value, the amount of imports in 1991; exports also grew steadily, but to a lesser extent due to a sudden increase in domestic consumption, which then declined in the following years. The increase in income, in certain sections of the population, has also produced more consistent outgoing tourist flows than incoming ones, to the point that the number of entries into the country tends to remain significantly lower than outgoing flows. The sector is also affected by the inadequacy of accommodation facilities and the poor security of the country. In the same period of time, the framework of the commercial interlocutors of Brazil has been fairly diversified, which now includes, in addition to the United States always in first place, Argentina, then China, Germany, Nigeria, Japan, South Korea and Chile, plus the Netherlands and Mexico for imports (chemicals, oil and derivatives, components for the automotive sector); among the European countries, France and Italy stand out. The items of exports include machinery and vehicles, steel products, fresh or preserved meat, iron, petroleum and derivatives, followed by soybeans, sugar, coffee, food industry residues, etc. Brazil has also entered into several international trade agreements (such as the creation of the South American Community of Nations in 2004 and the cooperation agreement with Ecuador for the exploitation of oil resources and the search for alternative fuels), expanding its possibility of exchange at discounted rates. § Internal communications have a trend that reflects the territorial organization: that is, they are relatively developed along the coastal areas and are instead poor as regards connections with the interior. This applies to both the road and rail networks (extended for about 30,000 km in 2014). This has its maximum center in São Paulo and basically connects the coastal centers with the immediate hinterland; the connections in the meridian direction are scarce and only occur in the highlands. The railway reaches Brasília and Goiânia and is then linked to Bolivia on one side, to Uruguay and Argentina on the other. The road network, which in 2011 had only 213,459 km asphalted out of a total of approx. 1,581,181 km, it is characterized in particular by the arteries that connect the country along the north-south routes Brasília-Belém, Cuiabá-Santarém and Pôrto Velho-Manaus-Boa Vista); also important are the connections along the Southeast-Rondônia diagonal and the one in the east-west direction guaranteed by the Trans-Amazonian, destined to connect the centers of the Northeast with Peru. Very important throughout the country and fundamental in the Amazon, where rivers are still the main communication routes, is inland navigation; in addition to the Amazon River, accessible by ocean-going ships up to Manaus, the São Francisco, Paraná and Paraguay are navigable. Among the main ports: Santos, Rio de Janeiro, Belém, Macapá, Pôrto Alegre, Salvador, Recife etc. Aerial communications are of particular importance (sometimes they are the only ones able to connect certain Amazonian locations); the main airports are those of São Paulo, Guarulhos, Rio de Janeiro, Brasília, Recife and Salvador; Brazil also has a very dense network of internal air transport. These are the main exports (US $ mln, 2017 data): soybean 25,718, iron ore 19,199.