Pride and Prejudice

No, I'm not going to comment on Jane Austen's beautiful book—an author, by the way, frequently cited in recent, highly successful works on economics. But I couldn't find better words to translate the antagonistic feelings that part of Brazilian society harbors towards agricultural production and the vast economic world that stems from it.

Every day, more people, including important leaders from the political and intellectual spheres, are opening their eyes to the meaning of so-called agribusiness, that is, the production chains that integrate farm production, logistics, industrial processing, the production of machinery, equipment, fertilizers and agrochemicals, and their distribution to domestic markets and to more than a hundred countries.

Most Brazilians feel a sense of pride for the transformations that have occurred in our countryside.

Less than 40 years ago, Brazil was threatened by insufficient food supply, and the vast majority of the population sacrificed a large part of their income just to feed their families.

In just over a generation, we have transformed ourselves into a major global producer of most of our food, and we also produce fiber and ethanol that supply the entire market at low prices, while still guaranteeing a substantial flow of foreign exchange through our exports.

This feat is truly impressive because, until the mid-70s, our agriculture and livestock farming were markedly backward and constituted an obstacle to economic growth and the improvement of the social conditions of the majority of the population.

What occurred was not an evolution, but a true invention. We created here a tropical agriculture, adapted to our climate and our soils, with our own technological means, while in the past we tried in vain to adapt the agriculture of temperate countries to our territory.

Brazilian agriculture is the work of Brazilians, of Brazilian brains and hands, and without it, our country would be experiencing a truly critical situation today.

But not everyone sees the same reality. That's where another feeling comes in: prejudice. Brazil and the world have changed, many beliefs haven't stood the test of time and history, but there are people who continue to cultivate ideas that no longer make sense.

For them, the farmer represents backwardness, stagnation, and unjust social structures.

Agriculture cannot be an economic function like industry, commerce, or finance. Therefore, it cannot modernize, use equipment, fertilizers, genetically modified seeds, none of that. It must return to what it was a hundred years ago: a refuge for impoverished and hopeless peasants, living in blissful harmony with nature.

Even though the world recognizes the sustainable nature of Brazilian agribusiness, there are those who slander us around the world, wanting to damage our image and our standing in the markets.

The truth always prevails, but we spend a lot of money and effort protecting ourselves from our own countrymen.

And those who are pessimistic by vocation, or by self-interest, lament that our foreign trade is dominated by the export of commodities, as if that were a bad word.

Our commodities, however, incorporate a great deal of technology and make up a multi-sectoral economic environment, since agribusiness, in addition to being agricultural, is also industry, commerce, logistics, and is also social, forming extensive production chains rooted in our territory and employing Brazilians in all regions.

I am optimistic, both in feeling and in reason. I have great faith that, in the not-too-distant future, pride will overcome prejudice.

What all this demonstrates, for those who look at reality without the myopic lenses of ideology, is that we are far better than we imagine ourselves to be, and it's high time we developed a more accurate self-awareness.