IAS 41 and biological assets in Brazil

Abstract

Brazil is one of the emerging countries that has adopted the IFRS, and agribusiness plays a relevant role in the Brazilian economy, turning the country into an important player in the review and discussion process of international standards. The objective of this paper is to assess whether IAS 41 contributes to the enhancement of the quality of accounting information, given that the measure that was previously used was historical cost, with no changes in the future economic benefits being disclosured, resulting in low-quality information. To analyse agribusiness companies’ financial statements, five analysis sections were created: disclosure in the notes; value relevance; timeliness of fair value information on biological assets; earnings management; and experts’ opinion of the quality of the information on the biological assets. The results reveal that: there have been improvements in the compulsory disclosure required by IAS 41, but this disclosure is not yet suitable; variations in the fair value of biological assets are value-relevant, but not for bearer plants; the information on biological assets is not timely; there are signs of earnings management by companies with lower disclosure levels; analysts consider that non-financial information may be prepared more useful. No study was found in the literature that considered the combination of the level of disclosure of the notes to the financial statements, the value relevance, the timeliness of the fair value information, earnings management and analysts’ opinions.

Keywords

• Biological assets
• IAS 41
• Accounting information quality
• Fair value
• Agribusiness