World agriculture towards 2030/2050: the 2012 revision - Fao

PROOF COPY
Net exports from developing countries did not decline because over the same period the
decline of their exports to the industrial countries was offset by rising imports into developing
countries. Several countries in the Near East/North Africa region and also countries like
Indonesia, Nigeria, Malaysia, and the Republic of Korea played a major role in the expansion
of world trade as their imports shot up. On the export side, Brazil has come to dominate world
exports followed by Thailand, while Cuba turned from the leading world exporter it was up to
the early 1990s to a minor one (Figure 3.12).
Figure 3.12 Sugar net trade positions, 1970-2007
Million tons (raw sugar equivalent)
50
40
30
20
10
0
-10
-20
-30
-40
1970
1972
Developed Brazil
Thailand Cuba
Other Developing Exporters Developing Importers
1974
1976
1978
1980
Net exporter/importer status of the developing countries as of average 2005/2007.
1982
1984
1986
Beyond the turnaround of the developed countries from importers to exporters and back
again and the emergence of Brazil as the major supplier to world markets, the last few years
have been characterized by growing interaction between energy and sugar markets: an
increasing part of world sugar cane and some sugar beet were used as feedstocks for the
production of ethanol, with Brazil being by far the most important producer. Currently over
one half of Brazil’s sugar cane production is used for ethanol. Given the country’s resource
potential and technological prowess, this has not prevented the country from increasing in
parallel sugar production and keep being the premier world exporter (Figure 3.13).
Food consumption of sugar in the developing countries is projected to continue to grow
to 2050 (Table 2.5 and Figure 3.11). Much of the growth would occur in Asia, as Latin
America and the Near East/ North Africa have already attained fairly high levels. Latin
America may continue to experience some decline (Table 2.6). Per capita consumption in the
developed countries will probably remain nearly constant, compared with declines in part of
the historical period during which corn sweeteners were substituting for sugar in the United
States of America. This process, very pronounced up to the mid-1980s, has by now run its
course. In the 1990s the decline in the average of the developed countries continued as
consumption fell in the formerly centrally planned economies of Europe during the reform
1988
1990
1992
1994
1996
1998
2000
2002
2004
2006
94