Futures Market and Agricultural Policy in Brazil

• Grant number: 98/16053-4
• Support Opportunities: Research Projects - Thematic Grants
• Start date: July 01, 1999
• End date: August 31, 2001
• Field of knowledge: Applied Social Sciences - Economics - Agrarian and Natural Resource Economics
• Principal Investigator: Geraldo Sant'Ana de Camargo Barros
• Grantee: Geraldo Sant'Ana de Camargo Barros
• Host Institution: Escola Superior de Agricultura Luiz de Queiroz (ESALQ). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Piracicaba , SP, Brazil
• Pesquisadores principais: Pedro Valentim Marques

Abstract

The general objective of this project is carrying out a thorough research on the futures market's potential as instruments for agricultural price stabilization, financing and risk managing. Brazilian futures market experience is relatively short; however, mainly due to private sector's initiative, the development of such markets is accelerating in recent years as a response to the reduction public sector's role as a provider of those benefits through the traditional agricultural policy instruments. The conjunction of several factors suggests that futures market can, in the short run, expand substantially in Brazil, and, therefore, the scientific community should rapidly take steps towards studying and understanding them so as to participate more effectively in the changing process under way. New agricultural policy and its conditioning factors due to globalization and economic integration, the efficiency of public sector intervention on agricultural markets has been severely reduced. In addition, the fiscal crisis has greatly curtailed the public funds needed for those interventions. (AU)