Brazil's 2025 soybean harvest set a record and accounted for 34% of the country's total farm production value, according to the PAM municipal agricultural survey released on Thursday (Sept. 17) by IBGE, Brazil's national statistics agency. The crop was worth 315.2 billion reais out of a total 927.2 billion reais. The figures are nominal, with no inflation adjustment.
Farmers harvested 165.3 million tonnes, up 14.4% from 2024 and the largest since the series began in 1974, Folha de S.Paulo reported. Agência Brasil put the figure at 165.2 million in its coverage of the same release. Yields did most of the work: productivity rose 10.3%, to 3,470 kg per hectare, while harvested area grew 3.1%. The value of the soy crop rose 21.1% in nominal terms from 2024 to 2025.
Where the money went
Soy's share of farm revenue climbed from 33.2% in 2024 to 34%. At the start of the series, in 1974, it stood at 10.9%; the peak was 45.9% in 2021. Mato Grosso state led with 90.3 billion reais in soy revenue, followed by Paraná (42.5 billion), Goiás (37.7 billion) and Rio Grande do Sul (28.3 billion). The top municipality was São Desidério, in western Bahia, part of the Matopiba farming frontier, with 4.5 billion reais.
Across all crops, the Center-West region moved back ahead of the Southeast, 288 billion reais to 271 billion, with soy, corn and cotton on one side and coffee and sugarcane on the other, Agência Brasil reported. Cotton output grew 16.4%, to 6 million tonnes, making Brazil the world's largest exporter of the fiber. Total farm production value, covering 70 products, rose 18.4% in nominal terms, the highest at least since the creation of the Real Plan in 1994. In volume, Brazil harvested 345.4 million tonnes of cereals, legumes and oilseeds, up 18.2% from a 2024 crop damaged by El Niño, and crossed 100 million harvested hectares for the first time.
Who buys, and what reaches the table
On the demand side, IBGE credited Chinese buying, stoked by the trade war between the United States and China, for the mix of record volume and stable prices.
The situation shows that the tariff war between the United States and China led the Asian country to increase its demand for Brazilian soybeans, keeping domestic prices for the commodity stable over the last months of the year.
Corn ranks second in the survey, at 122.1 billion reais (13.2% of the total), followed by sugarcane (11.7%), coffee (10.8%) and cotton (4.4%). For soy growers, the 2025 record is a gain built on volume: productivity advanced more than three times as fast as planted area, and domestic prices were stable late in the year, IBGE data show. For consumers the effect is indirect, since Brazil remains the world's largest producer and exporter of the bean. The basket item where price drove the jump was coffee, whose production value rose 44.7%, to nearly 100 billion reais, on a harvest only 3% larger.