“In a home where bread runs out, everyone shouts, but it never works out”. Could we double Brazil's GDP? The time has come to subordinate “Egonomics to Economics”.
Publicado em 04/07/2024
Divulgação
Could we double Brazil's GDP
By Prof.Dr. *José Luiz Tejon
Published on 1st July 2024, by Estadão this Sunday (07/30/2024 – Page B7, celebrating 30 years of the Real Plan, Mr.Edmar Bacha has concluded: “What we failed to do, was put our economy on a path of sustained growth. Brazil has been slipping. I think – says Edmar, renowned economist and one of the creators of the Real Plan – that Brazil keeps having a growth problem”, so we need to provoke and disturb, through the media, a government meeting which goes far beyond polarisation, hands down given with academia and business people, so that we have a national growth plan, integrating government and agribusiness people, concerning that these will be the unique ones to drive Brasilian GDP growth.”
Therefore, why can we double the GDP of agriculture and all the country?
Firstly, because we have scientific, and technical conditions, entrepreneurship, cooperativism, and a country unique in its biodiversity, even boasting the reality of being the largest food, energy and environmental power in the world.
We are the world's largest sequestrator of carbon from the atmosphere, and, besides, we have a creative and admirable tropical civilisation. We aren´t perfect, of course, but here on this planet, no one is.
Secondly, the world needs Brazil, precisely due to the skills we have developed over the last 50 years, given what Minister Roberto Rodrigues, himself, identified as the four modern Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Food Insecurity, Energy Insecurity, Social Inequality, and Climate Change.
The world will welcome 2 billion increasing people in the next 25 years. This will occur in nine countries: India, Pakistan, Indonesia, the United States, Nigeria, Uganda, Tanzania, Congo, and Ethiopia.
This fact means a flabbergasting food demand, especially regarding food, energy, and fibers, and, except the United States, these countries are located, in whole or in large part, within the tropical belt of the planet, between the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn.
Brazil has overcome the parable of the sower that says: “don´t sow on weak lands”. We learned to create soils and today, we are the 4th largest agriculture on earth, in addition to exporting food, fiber, energy, gastronomy, and tourism, we´re able to export “tropical technologies”.
Developing countries like India, home to around 1.4 billion human beings, will double their per capita income and this will undoubtedly mean a demand for much more food.
China, in her turn, with a growth forecast of 5% in 2024, points only this year, a “half-way” growth in Brazil as, In two years, “an entire” Brazil of growth.
This represents an incredible market, demanding and, it´s important to bear in mind that in these two giants, China and India, ancient agriculture already exploits its potential almost to its fullest.
I spoke to Mr.Paulo Rabello de Castro, a brilliant economist, about brasilian GDP, which represents only 2% of the world, and he explained the case to us as follows:
“Our inefficiency becomes more serious if we compare how much the population of each country adds yearly a year. We are around 215 million, and China´s around 1.4 billion, that is, around 6.5 times larger than us. However, if we grow 2% in GDP, Brazil will add only US$ 40 billion, while China will add more than US$1 trillion. Therefore, even having a population about 6.5 times larger, they produce, annually, 25 times more than Brazil! Here is our inefficiency.”
Brazil has the only territory full of biodiversity in six different biomes, with sub-biomes; We have a plan ready to convert 40 million hectares of degraded pasture areas into sustainable crops, with agro-industrialisation, science, and technology.
And, regarding biodiversity, we should implement a governance that generates products and services for high-income consumers, in sophisticated markets, creating extraordinary added value in parallel to our commodities, and promoting human dignity for millions of Brazilians facing social inequality.
“There is no Underdeveloped country, but an Under-administered country”, wrote Peter Drucker, one of the icons of Marketing and father of modern management, who needs no introduction.
There is a lack of strategic plan involving conscious leaders where “EGOonomy” should be subordinated to the “ ECOnomy of Cooperation”.
Is it doubling Brazilian GDP in 10 years achievable? When they tell me it´s something impossible, the more I trust in its total possibility!
*José Luiz Tejon – PhD in Education-Universidad de La Empresa/Uruguay; Master's degree in Art Education and History of Culture - Mackenzie University; Journalist and Publicist - Harvard, MIT and PACE/USA / Insead in France Specialisation Academic Coordinator of Master Science Food & Agribusiness Management at Audencia in Nantes/France and FECAP/ Brazil. Managing Partner at Biomarketing and TCA International. Professional Head at Agro Anefac. Writer author and Co-author of 35 books. Agro Personality Award 2023. ABAG. Former director of Grupo Estadão, Agroceres and Jacto S/A.
