Current status and future prospect of the agricultural mechanization in Brazil

Brazil is known worldwide as one of the major producers of grain, meat, sugar, coffee and other products. Agribusiness is one of the main activities in Brazil and contributes significantly to the Brazilian economy. This fact led to even greater investments and developments in the market of agricultural machinery and implements in the country. From the 1960s to the end of 2018, land areas with agricultural potential increased substantially, while the total number of wheel tractor fleets increased six-fold; in other words, the mechanized area in hectares per tractor decreased from 410 to 65 ha/tractor. The machinery and equipment manufactures in the country today is sufficient to support a high-level mechanization process and to decrease the number of tractors/seed planters/combines and other types of equipment per hectare. The acquisition and modernization of tractors, harvesters and other equipment types depend on the income of farmers and governmental and private credit policies. The sales of agricultural machinery in Brazil are strongly influenced by the prices of international commodities such as soybean, maize, citrus and coffee. With excessive urbanization and fewer labor resources available, extensive and highly mechanized crop systems, such as soybean, sugar cane, rice and corn, have been established to attend to farm chronograms at different levels of technology. In addition to a large machinery production capacity, the Brazilian industry has also invested in advanced technology, mainly in tractors and combines, to save time and fuel, lower the level of fatigue and reduce cost. © 2019 Farm Machinery Industrial Research Corp.. All rights reserved.