Margens de comercialização na cadeia da carne bovina no Rio Grande do Sul: uma análise a partir dos efeitos da pandemia de covid-19

Abstract

Brazil is established as the main supplier of beef and the largest producer of animal protein in the world. The activity occupies a privileged position in the Brazilian economy. The relevance in production and commercialization aims to meet the needs of the internal and external demand. Historically, cattle breeding in Rio Grande do Sul (RS) is among the main and traditional productive and economic activities of the state. In this scenario, RS, with favorable characteristics, contributes as a protagonist in the production of food and in the cattle raising activity. Beef is a food present in the diet of most of the gaúchos, and because it is characterized as a commodity, it is vulnerable to cyclical oscillations in its price levels for several reasons. Since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) the world has seen a series of changes in various sectors of the economy. Food inflation has hit the population hard, causing a reduction in the amounts of food purchased and considering options of lower nutritional quality, worsening the situation of food insecurity among the poorest, as a result of budget constraints. To understand the behavior of price levels, the objective of this study is to analyze the margins of beef commercialization in Rio Grande do Sul between the years 2017 and October 2022, in order to understand the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the price of margins of different links in the production chain. The quantitative method of analysis was based on time series statistics; secondary data collection technique through documents, extracted from the database of the Economics and Statistics Foundation (FEE), EMATER/RS reports and IEPE/UFRGS database; calculation of the marketing margin through equations; descriptive statistics by means of graphs and frequency tables; estimation of multiple linear regression models, using ordinary least squares models, dummy variable models and semi-log estimation, to check whether there was a structural change in prices and marketing margins in the beef chain in RS, with the advent of the coronavirus pandemic. The study identified the occurrence of an increase in beef prices with the advent of the pandemic for the consumer and stability for producers. It was able to estimate changes in the behavior of the analyzed variables, evidencing the presence of structural changes in the beef price levels to the consumer and in the commercialization margin (MC), of the beef chain in Rio Grande do Sul with the advent of the coronavirus pandemic.