Uma análise empírica sobre os determinantes da quantidade de produtores orgânicos nos municípios brasileiros.

Abstract

Due to the reduced Brazilian participation in the world production of organic food and its potential in the food sector, we sought to assess, via cross-section data (based on producers registered in January/2022), which local characteristics would explain the number of organic enterprises in the Brazilian municipalities. For this purpose, the estimators of OLS, Poisson and Negative Binomial were considered, including “zero inflated”, with corrections (via instruments) for the endogenous variable. It was found that organic producers would be attracted to the cities closest to the state capital, which are populous, rich, with a stable climate, slightly rainy, with mild temperatures, with better education, predominantly rural population, whose rural producers are between 25- 55 years old, and who have organic producers in the neighborhood. Furthermore, they seem to prefer places with more rural properties between 5-50 hectares, with their own irrigation, family-labor activity and avoiding pesticides. Alternatively, cities with strong agricultural production, high expenditures in this area and in transport, whose properties have their own storage systems and receive more technical assistance, would be neglected. Finally, it was found that traditional and organic foods would be substitute goods, that the South and Northeast regions are more favorable to organic sector and that the Midwest has almost no promising cities, suggesting that local (traditional) producers impose barriers to the entry of organics.