Paraguay comprises a total of 40.6 million hectares of land. But based on soil surveys, analysts have around that only one-fifth of that area is appropriate for normal crop production. According to the 1981 agricultural census, 7 % of the land was dedicated to crop production, 20 % to forestry, 26 % to farm animal, and 47 % to other purposes. These figures suggested the great agricultural potential that remained in Paraguay in the late 1980s. One of the most valuable trends in Paraguayan agriculture was the increase in the %age of land under cultivation, which had been only 2 % in 1956. farm animal activity fluctuated greatly during the 1970s and 1980s but generally had increased, rising above the 22-% land use reported in 1956. The improved utilization of agricultural resources resulted from increased colonization, favorable price movements for cash crops, further mechanization, and infrastructural improvements connecting produce with markets.

The nation's land use changed rapidly in the 1970s and 1980s as foreign investment, Paraguayan and Brazilian colonists, the construction of Itaipú, favorable commodity prices, and new infrastructure all contributed to the penetration of the dense eastern region. Increased prices for soybeans and cotton beginning in the early 1970s changed the Paraguayan landscape more drastically than any other factor. By the late 1980s, cotton and soybeans accounted for over 1.1 million hectares, or over 40 % of all land in crops and contributed over 60 % of exports. Although government policies favored export crops, the rapid development of cash crops was largely a direct response that Paraguay's free-market economy made to the rise in the international demand for these products.