Amid a deep recession and political uncertainty, confidence in Brazil’s agribusiness sector is bouncing back thanks to stronger local commodity prices and healthy margins. DTN reports the IC Agro agribusiness confidence index surged 19.5 points to 102.1 in the second quarter of 2016. The surge follows an 18-month slump. The Index measures confidence among input suppliers, industry and farmers. Scaling confidence between 0 and 200, a score of 100 represents neutral. This is the first time the index has topped 100 since the first quarter of 2014. Brazil’s business confidence, in general, has taken a massive hit over the last two years due to what DTN calls a “toxic cocktail of negative growth.” However, the county’s economy appears to have bottomed out. Meanwhile, agriculture is one of the few sectors to have grown through the recession, expanding 1.8 percent last year.
From the National Association of Farm Broadcasting news service.