亚马逊生物经济隐性GDP超48亿美元，中资农产加工与出口商面临数据盲区重估

Rafael Barbieri Divulgação The bioeconomy in Brazil’s Legal Amazon is more than 2.5 times the size that official statistics indicate. The region’s sociobioeconomy GDP, based on 41 value chains, would exceed $4.8 billion and account for 468,000 formal and informal jobs. By product volume, the domestic market is 34 times larger than exports. The figures come from the most comprehensive study ever conducted on the size of the bioeconomy across the nine states of Brazil’s Legal Amazon. The study, which Valor reviewed exclusively, will be released in Rome in October. “A Bioeconomia Amazônica: estimativas baseadas em dados oficiais da Amazônia Legal brasileira” (“The Amazon Bioeconomy: Estimates Based on Official Data From Brazil’s Legal Amazon”) was prepared by researchers from WRI Brasil, part of the World Resources Institute; the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO); and the Pan-Amazon Network. “Official data on the diversity-based bioeconomy, known as the sociobioeconomy, are highly fragmented and inconsistent when the full value chain for these resources is considered,” explained Rafael Feltran-Barbieri, a senior economist at WRI Brasil and one of the study’s coordinators. Bioeconomy is a contested concept in Brazil and worldwide. Climatologist Carlos Nobre defines it as “the economy of standing forests and flowing rivers.” Agribusiness favors a broader definition that encompasses chickens and cattle, soybeans and sugarcane. In Finland, it includes natural and planted spruce and pine trees, as well as biomass replacing fossil fuels. For Amazon researchers, the concept is not even new because it brings together ancestral activities suited to the biome. Economist Francisco de Assis Costa, a professor at the Center for Advanced Amazonian Studies (Naea) at the Federal University of Pará, describes bioeconomy as “an economy of terroir”—a sophisticated, biome-based economy because it assigns value “to what is specific and unique.” To move the discussion forward without getting mired in disagreements over definitions, Feltran-Barbieri has led a series of studies to make the informal sociobioeconomy—which official measures don’t capture—more visible. “When we examine primary production—fruits, seeds, and oils—we have a relatively good amount of data,” he said. “But when we look at the secondary sector, involving processing and transformation, a great deal of information is already lost. By the time we reach the tertiary sector, the only data available are on exports.” In other words, primary-sector products are goods in their natural state, classified as they appear in databases maintained by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE). Secondary-sector products are processed goods recorded in the IBGE’s Annual Industrial Survey (PIA). Tertiary-sector products correspond to the final form in which they are exported, according to the categories used by the Integrated Foreign Trade System (Siscomex). “We do not have good data on the domestic market, for example,” Feltran-Barbieri said. To estimate the Brazilian Amazon’s sociobioeconomy more broadly, the researchers sought to reconstruct the value chains of 41 Amazonian products, ranging from andiroba and bacuri to barbatimão and piaçava. The first step was to greatly expand the range of products in the Amazon basket, which is little known outside the region. “Measuring the bioeconomy more accurately is essential so that it can be recognized as an economic activity, attract investment, and guide appropriate public policies,” he said. “But there are currently many gaps in the official data.” The study began with official databases, primarily IBGE data available for 2023. To reconstruct the value chains, fill the gaps, and estimate what is implicit in the statistics, the researchers used a methodology developed by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). “It is a simple method known as the ‘non-observed economy technique,’ which essentially fills the gaps between the different stages of the value chain—the primary and secondary sectors and trade,” the economist said. He cited açaí as an example. “I always use this example because açaí is not like jabuticaba—you do not eat the fruit itself. Açaí can be consumed only after it has been processed,” Feltran-Barbieri said. One major gap is the difference between the amount of pulp produced and the volume of fruit harvested. “The difference is most likely household consumption and economic activity that exists but is informal,” he suggested. The hundreds of açaí processors found on street corners in cities such as Belém and Macapá are not included in the industrial survey. Another gap appears in trade data: Brazil exported more than 69 tonnes of açaí pulp in 2023, while the industry recorded production of 200,000 tonnes. “If we add what went unreported—the informal industry—we reach almost 1 million tonnes.” The same method was applied to 41 products from the Amazon sociobiodiversity. The entire value chain can be reconstructed for many of them, including açaí and Brazil nuts, but not for others. For cocoa, for example, data is available on the volume of beans produced, but it is impossible to determine how much cocoa was used in products containing chocolate. “We establish a cutoff and consider only products in which cocoa is the main ingredient; otherwise, we would inflate the estimates. We follow that process for each value chain,” he explained. For the first time, the study estimates that the Amazon sociobioeconomy is 2.5 times the size indicated by official data—its main finding. “This is extremely important,” Feltran-Barbieri said. “This is generally an informal economy that employs local and vulnerable people who remain outside the statistics,” he continued. “As a result, whenever there is a development plan or a decision on allocating credit, it is difficult to reach these people.” Mauricio Mireles Divulgação Mauricio Mireles, the FAO’s policy officer for Indigenous Peoples and social inclusion in Latin America and the Caribbean, said the organization’s involvement in the issue gained momentum after the Amazon Dialogues, the major event that preceded the Amazon Summit in Belém in 2023. “There was a demand for more data and evidence to understand agricultural production capacity and what was happening in what Brazil calls the sociobioeconomy,” he said. The study, which began two years ago, would make it possible to identify products that keep the forest standing and benefit family farmers, Indigenous peoples, and traditional Amazonian communities. “That was our main motivation: We understand that the connection between conserving the Amazon biome and production in these highly specific value chains is very important for these populations,” Mireles said. “In addition, many jobs are associated with this Amazon bioeconomy, and they had been completely invisible.” Official data indicated only 2,000 jobs in the sociobioeconomy, but the study identifies 468,000 based on research by Costa of the Federal University of Pará. The high level of informality partly explains the discrepancy. Feltran-Barbieri said the National Classification of Economic Activities (CNAE) does not include sociobioeconomy products. “We can identify people who work in tofu or soy-sauce production, but we cannot identify those who work with Brazil nuts. Many bioeconomy jobs ultimately receive generic classifications such as ‘gatherers.’” One of the study’s recommendations is to improve official statistical systems. Another is to promote local production and traditional arrangements. A third is to integrate the data with public policies and development-support programs. The analysis also indicates that unused bioeconomy waste could generate 5,430 GWh of energy annually, equivalent to 7% of the Legal Amazon’s total energy consumption in 2025. “That volume of energy would be equivalent to 436 million liters of gasoline a year, or it could double the energy available for cooking in the 340,000 households that still use firewood and charcoal sourced from the region,” the executive summary noted. Brazil is one of the leaders of the Group of Friends of Bioeconomy for Sustainable Food and Agriculture, an international network launched with the European Union at the FAO in 2025. “Brazil plays a very important role in this process,” Mireles said. The group of countries seeks to show that, for the Global South, the relevant definition of bioeconomy keeps forests standing and recognizes the value of traditional knowledge and communities’ ability to link food security with biome conservation. “Similar discussions are taking place in several countries across the Pan-Amazon region,” he noted. Mireles emphasized the importance of statistics for an organization such as the FAO. “The estimates developed in Brazil are conservative and can be improved. Our ambition is to inspire other countries to undertake this exercise and create a Pan-Amazonian body of work.” Mireles said the lack of classifications and terminology harmonized among countries creates barriers to opening markets. “It constrains nutritional analyses, phytosanitary measures, and scientific research. Addressing this could encourage cooperation among Amazon countries,” he added. Translation: Todd Harkin