Política agrícola para o agronegócio: uso de recursos públicos em benefício indireto de multinacionais estrangeiras

ABSTRACT The Brazilian agricultural policy is focused on credit used by farmers to purchase agricultural inputs. As these inputs are increasingly controlled by foreign multinational companies, the Brazilian government might be using the taxpayers’ money to indirectly finance international corporations. This paper assesses the endowment of agricultural credit in Brazil and the market share of Brazilian groups in agribusiness supply chains. The study examined the two largest supply chains in the country: those of soybeans and cattle. Results reveal that most of the subsidized credit goes to the soybean supply chain, which encompasses only a small number of farmers. Beef and dairy farming, on the other hand, encompass a large portion of farms, but get a smaller share of the credit. These results show that resources invested in farmers that compose supply chains controlled by multinational foreign groups end up indirectly financing foreign companies to the detriment of domestic agribusiness.