MORE OR LESS
Reduction had been expected for the State of Paraná, where the negative profitability rates in 2015, credit crunches, shortage of labor and a favorable
scenarioforothercropswereresponsibleforanapproximately10-percentreductioninplantedarea,withchancefortheproductionvolumetogodowneven
furtherduetoexcessiveprecipitation.AsimilarpicturehadbeenunfoldinginthestatesofMatoGrossodoSulandSãoPaulo,which,likewise,playarelevant
role in processing. The leading producer, the State of Pará, in turn, was still supposed to suffer declines in the crop, according to the first figures released by
the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), while Bahia, third biggest producer, was signaling a bigger size of the crop.
If the entire Country is considered, in spite of some alterations in February, in early 2016, IBGE officials pointed to a somewhat bigger production area.
This estimate was based on the “bigger planted areas in some States in the North, owing to the fact that cassava fields require smaller investments, and
equally because of the good weather in the Northeast”. The State of Amazonas was supposed to double its planted area, to 168 thousand hectares. Any-
way, the picture was still looking undefined and supported the option expressed by Carlos Estêvão Leite Cardoso, researcher at Embrapa Cassava and Fru-
ticulture: it is of the utmost importance to improve the governance andmanagement of the supply chain.
As principais
MAINVEGETABLES
Production of the root suffered
a decline again in 2015 and the
situation for 2016 is still undefined
Inor Ag. Assmann
55
