Brazil: reservoir of future ag production capacity?In 2001, we
estimated that Brazil could bring 200 to 300 million acres of
land into agricultural production — an area equal to the U.S.
acreage involved in major crop production. By: Daryll E. Ray and
Harwood D. Schaffer, KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — In 2001, we estimated
that Brazil could bring 200 to 300 million acres of land into
agricultural production — an area equal to the U.S. acreage
involved in major crop production. Two years later, the, USDA
Foreign Agricultural Service estimated that, over time, the
potential added production acreage could be closer to 420
million acres. In our 2003 column describing the FAS report, we
wrote “The long-term trend suggests that this expansion would
proceed at the rate of 3 to 4 percent a year, if current
conditions continue to prevail. Significantly lower crop prices
or higher cattle prices could retard the expansion of crop
acreage, while high crop prices could accelerate the growth in
crop acreage. This growth is premised o