Flaviopédia Português
Cheaper Brazil

Cheaper food on the shelf

Brazil produces food; Brazilians need to be able to buy it

Proposes creating Smart Logistics Corridors (Corredores Logísticos Inteligentes), expanding Rural Insurance and crop storage, and supporting domestic fertilizer production to reduce food prices.

In the program: [p. 31, 32] · Translated by Flaviopédia from the official Portuguese text; the Portuguese quote is authoritative. Read the original in Portuguese

What the program says

Brazil is one of the largest food producers in the world, and yet there are Brazilians struggling to fill their shopping carts. An important part of the explanation lies in the path between the field and the shelf. The logistics cost in Brazil is 15.5% of GDP, almost double the 8.8% of the United States. That difference does not stay along the way: it reaches the final price and is paid by the family. We will create the “Corredores Logísticos Inteligentes” (“Smart Logistics Corridors”), with a direct focus on reducing transport costs, and expand Rural Insurance, giving predictability to those who plant: a protected harvest is guaranteed supply, and guaranteed supply is a stable price. We will also expand crop storage capacity, currently insufficient for what the country produces. Without warehouses, a large part of the harvest has to be shipped out all at once, and Brazil spends the rest of the year depending on third-party stocks, if not on imports. The result reaches your home as a jolt: the price that shoots up between harvests, the product that disappears from the shelf, the same purchase that costs one thing one month and something quite different the next. With storage, food stays available all year round, and the supermarket bill stops being a surprise at every visit. Every real saved on freight is one real less in the price of rice, beans and meat. That is how what the countryside produces becomes affordable food on the city’s table. Cheap food is also food security: a country that produces its own food is not held hostage by prices abroad. Today, however, Brazil imports most of the fertilizers it uses to produce, and when the price shoots up abroad, it is food that gets more expensive here at home. We will support domestic fertilizer production, with the minerals Brazil has, such as potassium and phosphate, so that Brazilians’ tables do not depend on what happens on the other side of the world. Ensuring that Brazil produces what it eats is ensuring food on the table at a fair price. [p. 31, 32]

In plain language

  • The text states that part of the explanation for food prices lies in the path between the field and the shelf. It says the logistics cost in Brazil is 15.5% of GDP, almost double the 8.8% of the United States, and that this difference reaches the final price.
  • It proposes creating the “Corredores Logísticos Inteligentes”, focused on reducing transport costs, and expanding Rural Insurance to give predictability to those who plant.
  • It provides for expanding crop storage capacity, which the text describes as insufficient for what the country produces. According to the program, with storage, food stays available all year round and the supermarket bill stops being a surprise.
  • It states that Brazil imports most of the fertilizers it uses and proposes supporting domestic fertilizer production with minerals the country has, such as potassium and phosphate.

What is not in the program

  • It does not describe what the “Corredores Logísticos Inteligentes” would be, where they would be located or who would carry them out.
  • It does not state how much Rural Insurance and storage capacity would be expanded.
  • It does not detail what form the support for domestic fertilizer production would take.
  • It gives no cost, funding source or timeline for the measures.
  • It sets no target for reducing the logistics cost or food prices.