Avaliação das mudanças na política de garantia de preços mínimos: período de 1997 a 2004

This paper evaluates the main changes that happened in the Brazilian policies of agricultural minimum price since 1997, paying attention to operational issues and discrepancies among regions and products that occurred when implementing those policies. In 1996, Brazilian Federal Government created two new programs, PrAamio de Escoamento de Produto (PEP) and Contratos de OpA§Aµes de Venda de Produtos AgropecuAirios (COVPA), in addition to other two traditional programs (AquisiA§A£o do Governo Federal, AGF, and EmprA©stimos do Governo Federal, EGF). However, the new programs only were implemented one year after. Since then, these four Federal programs of minimum prices have had different performances. This paper evaluates those differences, highlighting unequal distribution of these programs among products and regions. COVPA is concentrated in corn crops, PEP favored cotton and AGF is biased to rice and beans. Moreover, Center-Western states are favored in using these programs and Northern and Northeastern states little used these programs.