Economic, Social And Environmental Indicators Of Medicinal, Aromatic And Condimental Crops In Brazil

Medicinal, aromatic and spice crops play a fundamental role in communities' economic, social, cultural, and ecological spheres. Currently, the most important uses are in the pharmaceutical, perfume, cosmetics, toothpaste, soap, beverage, and food industries. This study aims to estimate the economic, social, and environmental impacts of Brazil's medicinal, aromatic, and spice crops production sector. Specifically, it intends to calculate indicators based on the input-output matrix of the research's focus sector and other agricultural sectors for comparative analysis regarding job creation, income, taxes, carbon dioxide, blue water consumption, and its intersectoral linkage indexes. The increase of one million dollars in final demand in the Medicinal, Aromatic, and Spice Crops sector generates around 1.15 million dollars in production, 920,000 dollars in income and 16.85 job positions, showing economic and social importance with the greatest direct effect on production in the countryside (over 80%). From an environmental point of view, the same amount of final demand generates 5.5 kt of CO2eq and consumes 447,000 cubic meters, relatively high values compared to the other agricultural sectors listed in the study. Therefore, the sector presents challenges in developing sustainable techniques to reduce blue water consumption and carbon dioxide emissions. Moreover, the intersectoral linkage indexes indicate the low use of inputs and the use of the sector's products as raw materials by other industrial sectors capable of earning value to the production chain. Developing the medicinal, aromatic, and spice crops sector requires new production techniques to increase productivity sustainably, and investment policies are needed. The trend towards consuming natural and healthy products encourages using raw materials in industrial processes, earning value for the production chain.