Rio, September 25, 2003 (Agência Brasil - ABr) - Brazil's production of cereals, legumes, and oilseeds (cotton seeds, peanuts, rice, beans, castor beans, corn, soybeans, oats, rye, barley, sorghum, wheat, and triticale) in 2003 is expected to attain 122.019 million tons, 25 million tons more than in last year's harvest. According to Carlos Alberto Lauria, a technical specialist at the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), such a large increase in the harvest from one year to the next has never been registered, since the Systematic Survey of Agricultural Production began in 1975.

According to Lauria, this result is due to favorable weather conditions, techniques used in cultivation, and advances achieved in agricultural research in the country. (DAS)