Brazil is known for its stunning scenery, tasty caipirinhas, tantalizing carnivals, mighty Amazon river and enormous rainforest, but its real fame will come from the contributions of water and arable land to the 2050 story. Brazil can feed the world.
Take soybeans as an example. Already China imports 14% of its water needs by its strategic decision to buy soybeans from Brazil rather than grow the water-hungry crop domestically. Soybean exports from Brazil increased five-fold in the last decade to meet that demand. This trend seems likely to continue because China’s demand for imported soybeans is projected to increase more than 40% over the next decade.
Brazil has more spare farmland than any country in the world. The FAO puts its total potential arable land at over 400 million hectares, with only 50 million being used. In northern Brazil, where massive ports are being built to handle exponentially increasing grain exports, the land suitable for farming grains totals 7.5 million hectares, only 17.9%, or little over one million hectares, are currently managed for agriculture, mainly by low-efficiency pasture-fed livestock operations. Soybeans occupy only 0.46% of the area that in theory could be expanded for farmland without deforestation. Much of the land is protected rainforest and thus Brazil’s untapped potential is much larger.
Brazil also has the water, as much as the whole of Asia. Importantly, the land and the water are in the same place, a good fortune many countries don’t have. Even one of the Brazil’s driest areas gets a third more water than America’s bread basket.
Can Brazilian agricultural production be sustainable while protecting the rainforest? Yes. Take soy as an example. Sustainable practices are possible and encouraged thanks to the impressive partnership Brazilian state and national governments such as SEMA, multinational commodity traders such as Cargill, and local and international ENGOs such as The Nature Conservancy. The Soybean Moratorium is a brokered agreement by major exporters to not buy soybeans grown on land created by deforesting the rainforest. Moreover, the model partnership of TNC, Cargill, and SEMA, has created a land registry program (CAR) that provides the accountability and transparency necessary for a stable, sustainable agriculture development trajectory that enforces Brazil’s powerful environmental regulations (such as the Forest Code), builds infrastructure and economic development opportunities of residents, and is creating the potential to feed the world.
The 2050 trends are motivating investors to buy up farmland around the world. The big rush raises serious questions about ownership, autonomy and control. I’m not sure what Brazil should do about it, but it is a good problem to have. We are fortunate that Brazil can feed the world.