Book Description

This dissertation analyses the impact of minimun price policy and of fertilizer policy in Brazil upon production of grain and Soybeans. A historical overview of the policies including their legal evolution and the main policy instruments involved is presented in chapter 1. The linkage between minimum price policy and the volume of federal credit conceded to agriculture by the Banco do Brasil is analysed in chapter 2. In chapter 3 several models of supply response to the minimum prices are estimated, using as case studies rice, corn and soybeans. The theoretical consideration relating to the analisys of fertilizer response functions and the empirical analysis for wheat, corn and soybeans using experiment station data are presend in chapter 4, while chapter 5 presents the optimal levels of fertilizer for different scenarios. The comparison of the results obtained in chapter 5 with the "technological package" of EMBRAPA (Brazilian Enterprice for Agricultural Research) is presented in chapter 6 including the main conclusions of the study.