Brazil's agricultural exports take an upturn

Brazil's agricultural exports rose 20.6% in February against a year before, to US$4.4 billion.

The sector's trade surplus stood at US$3.4 billon last month, the Agriculture Ministry said. The biggest contributions to February's results came from poultry, beef, sugar, soymeal and forest product exports.

"February marked the start of a recovery in Brazilian agricultural exports, following a 10% drop in export revenue in 2009", said Eduardo Sampaio, the Agribusiness International Promotion Director at the Agriculture Ministry.

One of the sharpest increases last month was in fresh beef export revenue, which rose 42.6%, to US$265 million from US$186 million in February 2009. As a whole, beef, pork and poultry exports rose 24.5% in the period, to US$973 million from US$781 million.

Soymeal exports rose by 17.4% between February 2009 and a year later, to US$582 million, while sugar and ethanol export revenue rose by 47.8% in the same period, to US$729 million.