PROFIT OF PINEAPPLE GROWN IN RIO GRANDE DO SUL UNDER DIFFERENT LEVELS OF TECHNOLOGY

Abstract

The estimate of pineapple profit (total income/costs) helps the producer to better plan the crop. An experiment was established with pineapple 'Perola', grown in Rio Grande do Sul, under high, medium, and low levels of technology, using three population densities (50 000, 40 000, and 30 000 plants/ha), with a total of 40 000, 30 000, and 21 000 fruits sold, respectively. The fruits were classified according to their weight (<0.6 kg; 0.6-0.8 kg; 0.8-1 kg; > 1 kg), and price (R$ 0.35; R$ 0.45; R$ 0.55; R$ 0.65). The income was estimated considering the total number of fruits in each class and the price per unit. To estimate production costs, the following expenses were considered: mechanical operations, manual operations, inputs, materiais and equipments, leasing, interests, and devaluation of the equipments. The cost comprised the average princes of the local market in August 1999, and the fruit price was the average paid to the growers in 1997, 1998, and 1999.The total income from fruit safe was R$ 23,200.00, R$ 15,000.00, and R$ 8,820.00, for an estimated production cost of RS 10,061.16, R$ 8,181.80, and R$ 5,999.77, with a net income of R$13,139.00, R$6,618.00 and R$2,820.00 (US$1.00 = R$1.88 in 08/16/99), resulting in retum taxes around 130%, 83%, and 47% for the respectivo technological leveis: high, medium and low. Under the medium technology, the seedlings, interests, manual operations, fertilizers, materiais and equipments, herbicides, leasing, devaluation, mechanical operations, inductors and surfactante, as well as insecticides had the following percentages of the total cost of the crop, in this order: 41, 18, 13, 8, 5, 5, 4, 2, 2, I and I. Regardless of the risk and the high costs, pineapple culture may have a high profit when cultivated under a high technological level.