Brazil produces highest-ever grain harvest in 2011

Brazil's national cereal, pulse and oilseed harvest yielded 159.9 million tons in 2011, 6.9 percent higher than the record harvest in 2010 of 149.6 million tons and 0.2 percent higher than the November 2011 estimate of 348,177 tons, according to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics.
Brazil’s 2011 grain harvest area of 48.7 million hectares is an increase of 4.7 percent from the harvested area in 2010, and an increase of 0.2 percent (39,305 hectares) from November 2011. The cultivation of rice, corn and soybeans — which together represent 90.3 percent of the volume of grain production — accounts for 82.4 percent of that total harvested area. In comparison to 2010 numbers, there was an increase in harvested areas of 1.7 percent (rice), 3.5 percent (corn) and 3.3 percent (soybeans); and an increase in production by 19 percent (rice), 0.1 percent (corn) and 9.2 percent (soybeans). Among 25 crops, 16 increased production from 2010, including: 
• cotton seed (72.6 percent)
• the first harvest of peanuts (27.3 percent)
• paddy (19.0 percent)
• the first harvest of potatoes (13.3 percent)
• the second harvest of potatoes (7.6 percent)
• the third  harvest of potatoes (6.1 percent)
• cacao beans (6.3 percent)
• barley grain (9.3 percent)
• the first harvest of beans in grain (31.2 percent)
• oranges (2.8 percent)
• castor bean berry (24.7 percent)
• cassava (7.3 percent)
• the first harvest of corn grain (3.3 percent)
• soybeans grain (9.2 percent)
• sorghum grain (29.5 percent)
• triticale grain (25.2 percent)