Brazil is the world's largest broiler meat exporter. Health control, knowledge and technology, as well as the natural aspects of the country are pointed out as the keys for the success of that product in the market. Brazilian broiler production grew significantly in the last decade; it creates jobs and has a significant social role in Brazilian economy. This study aimed at evaluating the Brazilian broiler meat supply chain from 2000 to 2010 using the social network analysis (SNA). Data from governmental and private sources were organized and analyzed. The focus of this study was the broiler production supply chain segment involving the hatchery, the broiler farm, the feed mill, the processing plant, and the government. The inputs considered were one-day-old chicks, pullet, feedstuff, and the infrastructure; and the outputs were broiler meat and taxes paid. The software UCINET was applied for calculating the structural attributes and indicators of the network. Results showed a relatively disorganized network in 2000 with the strongest tie between the farmer and the processing plant. The structural organization of the network improved until 2010. The density of the ties in the broiler meat production network increased steadily from 2000 to 2010 within a vertical cohesive supply chain structure. The success of Brazilian broiler meat production is attributed to the abundance of land, fertile soil, favorable climate, and the effort and investments in research and development by innovative companies in the last few years. The results of the present study showed that Brazilian broiler production evolved positively in the last ten years, and it was weakly influenced by international challenges.

Economic growth and production process development require technological support. Technology changes production functions, enabling a higher number of goods to be produced using the same amount of input. In this review, we discuss research and development in information technology that has led to innovative actions, with the new generation of tools, known as precision agriculture tools, that can be applied in Brazilian poultry production. In this context, research and development have focused on producing technological innovations based on increasingly specialized tools that go beyond human mind power, and are related to the acquisition, access, and processing of a huge number of data. The technology generated to date has assimilated the knowledge of experts, transferring it to the computing environment, providing steady, consistent, inexpensive, and fast tools to support decision-making in corporate farms. This will produce more precise and documented decisions, based on accessible and reproducible knowledge. There would be no direct interference of the global market, bringing benefits to producers, consumers, and also ensuring the welfare of birds. This review also highlights the interest of researcher in developing intelligent applications to support best practices, methods, and processes in order to monitor the production chain. It also shows that a few changes may affect the process as a whole, enabling fast decision-making, and promoting a preventative and less aggressive management of birds.