Brazil's transition from a net food importer to one of the world's leading exporters over the last 50 years with Bruno Brasil, Brazilian Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock

There is a huge amount we can learn from Brazil’s transition from being a net food importer to one of the world’s largest food exporters over the last 50 years. Since deforestation across the Amazon peaked in the mid 1990’s Brazil has continued to invest in both driving productivity increases alongside increasing efforts to preserve wilderness areas and restore degraded lands. To help address climate change the government has doubled investment including doubling investment in low carbon agriculture from $1Billion to $2 Billion through their ABC plan. This program includes making low interest credit available for Brazilian farmers to adopt low carbon practices.

Over the last 10 years productivity of beef cattle in Brazil increased by 2.5% per year and dairy production by almost 4% per year. At the same time the ABC plus plan for beef cattle aims to reduce methane emissions and methane intensity. A huge component of this recovering 40 million hectares of degraded pasture land.

Today, around 80% of the Amazon is protected by law to combat deforestation.  

The impact of the Brazilian Government’s investment in education through Embrapa’s long running programs of sponsor Brazilian PhD students across world leading universities cannot be understated.  

Today we are joined by Bruno Brasil, the director of Sustainable Production and Irrigation at the Brazilian Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock where he coordinates the Sectoral Plan for Adaptation to Climate Change and Low Carbon Emissions in Agriculture. 

Brazilian farming is highly diverse, over 85% are family farmers, with over 80% of these below 50ha. At the other end of the scale, the largest 1% of all properties in Brazil are responsible for 49% of food production in value terms. 

As Brazil prepares to host world leaders at COP30 later this year I welcome Bruno to discuss the successes and challneges facing Brazilain agriculture. 

You can listen to our conversation here: