Files
Abstract
In Brazil, the vast experience and ability for agribusiness generate reflections
regarding implications of fiscal and agricultural policies on the food pricing and,
consequently, on food security. Thus, this study aims to evaluate the impact of the
Minimum Price Policy for Agriculture, rural credit and indirect taxes on prices of some
of the more important food from the Food Basket of Porto Alegre (RS), Brazil. To this end,
descriptive and inferential statistics were used to identify causal relationships between
variables in the period from January/2005 to April/2011. It was observed that multiple
linear regressions were statistically significant, except those estimated for coffee and wheat
flour prices. Besides, the supply of products sampled tends to be elastic, considering the
positive relationship between food prices and the proxies of public subsidies for agricultural production and marketing. It was perceived that changes in indirect taxes on consumption imply variations in
the same direction in prices of rice, beans, milk, oil and bread. Thus, it is worth noting that the encumbrance of
essential food can hamper economic access to food in the area studied. Finally, considering the moderate degree of
linear association between the explanatory variables and food prices, it is suggested that these variations can also be
explained by factors related directly to the productive and competitive process.