Marching
speedily
Favorable exchange rate enhances the result of foreign
vegetable sales and sustains a rising share in the trade
The volume is still low (about 1% of the
entire crop), but Brazilian vegetable ex-
ports are on a rising trend again. In 2015,
after a year in which the numbers of the
foreign trade had gone up slightly, there
was an increase of 27.7%, with a total of
393 thousand tons. As far as revenue in
dollar goes, the numbers went up only
3.3%, totaling US$ 290.7 million. Howev-
er, the exchange rate, with the dollar high-
ly valued against the Brazilian currency,
played an essential role in the bigger sales.
Two leading crops, which are in fact part
of the realm of fruit, had a good export per-
formance in 2015. By far the leader in ship-
ments abroad, melons registered record
sales, with a volume of 233.7 thousand tons,
representing an increase of 13.6%, despite
supply limitations stemming from unfavor-
able weather conditions. Revenue brought
in was not much bigger than last year (it was
up only 1.6%), amounting to US$ 154 mil-
lion. The main market, as usual, was the Eu-
ropean Union, but the sector harbors expec-
tations for sales to the giant Chinese market.
The growth in watermelon exports, in
turn, reached 79.1% in quantity and 64.1% in
revenue. The credit of this good result goes to
the favorable exchange rate, but technological
investments in the sector also had a say in this
matter. The leading importers of watermel-
ons from Brazil are equally European nations,
with theNetherlands and theUnitedKingdom
ranking as first, but, in themeantime, purchas-
es by Mercosur countries have soared.
Cassava-based products, ranking as third
among the segment’s most exported items,
equally make a big leap forward (up 47%),
especially starch, whose shipments nearly tri-
pled. For the most part, the cassava-based
products were shipped to Latin America (9
thousand tons) and huge volumes were des-
tined for Asia (6.7 thousand tons). According
to theCenter for Applied Studies onAdvanced
Economics (Cepea), of the Luiz de Queiroz
College of Agriculture (Esalq), a division of the
University of São Paulo (USP), it was the big-
gest volume exported in 12 years.
Among the main items of Brazilian vege-
tables destined for foreign countries in 2015,
strides were alsomade by two vegetables that
belong to the most imported crops - pota-
toes and onions. Other vegetables with soar-
ing foreign sales were sweet corn and peas,
besides the sales of shells and different types
of kernels. The latter had previously made
strides, confirming the efforts pursued by the
sector, in an attempt to strengthen its posi-
tion on the grounds of a diversified and high-
ly qualified Brazilian production.
Melons andwatermelons
performedwell
in exports in 2015
Sílvio Ávila
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