Cerrado region agricultural potential and policy for its development.

Abstract

The demand for tood and raw materials tends to increase as a result of the growth of the Brazilian population and of the need to expand exports. In order to meet this demand, the country has two altematives: to increase productivity or to expand cultivated area. Brazilian agriculture was mainly concentrated in subtropical areas, but a frontier expansion towards the Cerrado region is occurring during the last fifteen years. This region covers an area of about 200 million hectare, most of it being suitable for intensive agriculture. The actual farming systems are of low efficiency, minly due to inefficient soil and water management. It is estimated, however, that the total agricultural production may double in the next ten years. The proposed policy to meet this goal includes, basically, the development and transference of technology, together with an improvement of the interaction among the production factors. The strategy to materialize this policy involves the strenghtaning of research and extension services, the selection of research priorities and the improvement of regional infrastructure, as described in this paper.