Evolução das cadeias produtivas de tomate industrial e para mesa no Brasil, 1990-2016.

The article shows that the early 1970s in Brazil saw administrative reforms and an organization of research, extension and services in the vegetable production sector that fostered the development of the industrial and fresh tomato supply chains in Brazil. From 1967 to 2015, industrial tomato production, introduced in the southeastern state of São Paulo, expanded in Brazil’s Northeast region in the 1980s and in the western-central state of Goiás state in the 1990s, which gained hegemony in this chain. During this period, Brazil’s average yield of industrial tomatoes exceeded the values recorded for fresh tomatoes. In the biennium 2014-15 global tomato production was 41 million tonnes, 23.6% lower than in the previous biennium, with Brazil having a production of 1.40 million tons in this year. Between the five first and last years of the 1990-2013 period, whereas Brazil’s tomato cultivation area increased by 7.0%, production increased by 93.0% led by a productivity increase from 37 t / ha to 76 t / ha. Thus, whereas productivity contributed to 97.0% of production expansion, the area contributed with 3.0%. In the biennium 2014-15, Brazil’s total tomato production was 4.00 million tonnes, 63.0% for fresh produce, and 37.0% for processed tomatoes. Over the 1990-2012 period, the cultivation area of table tomato expanded by 19.0%, while productivity increased by 40.0% and production by 67.6%, between the initial and last five-year periods. Hence, area contribution to product expansion was 28.4%, while that of was productivity 71.6%.