By IANS,
Rio de Janeiro : At the time when the entire world is suffering from a severe food crunch and price rise, Brazil has said it will significantly increase its food production to establish itself as one of the world’s largest food providers, EFE news agency reported Wednesday.
“The government’s Agricultural and Livestock Plan for the year 2008-09 is aimed at meeting the tightening situation in the world food market,” Edilson Guimaraes, a senior official at the agriculture ministry, said in an interview with official news service Agencia Brasil.
“The earlier plan was made at a time when the sector was emerging from a crisis. Now, food prices are high and the country has to take advantage of opportunities,” he said in the interview published Tuesday.
The 2007-08 plan aimed at promoting agricultural activity after a 4.66 percent drop in the sector in 2005 and modest growth of 0.45 percent in 2006, Guimaraes said.
The new plan includes investments of 65 billion reais ($40.37 billion).
The details of the plan will be made public later.
According to Guimaraes, one of the government’s main objectives is “to take advantage of (international) opportunities” without losing control over domestic food prices.
Therefore, the government is proposing to increase the country’s stockpiles of grains and cereals, including corn and rice, by 400 percent to six million tonnes, the official added.