Agricultura e ajuste externo no Brasil: novas considerações

Abstract

The article analyses the performance of agriculture in the 1980's. It is shown that the agricultural product has maintained, to a large extent, its growth trend of the 1970's, and that the short-run behavior of this product has not kept any systematic relation to the overall cyclical evolution. This last finding, in particular, justified the return to an old literature on the behavior of agricultural production and prices over the trade cycle, adapted, however, in order to take into acount some aspects of special relevance to the analysis of the Brazilian case. The article argues, in addition, that agricultural production for the domestic market has improved its performance markedly, and seeks to place this phenomenon within a broader perspective of analysis of the contribution of agriculture to the process of adjustment of Brazilian economy to the external crisis.