Brazil tops of the list of the world’s “breadbasket” regions best poised to meet a global demand for food expected to increase 60% over the next decade, according to a new report from US-based think tank Atlantic Council.
To maintain the country’s place as a both a reliable producer and exporter, “Brazilian leaders in the public and private sectors must make choices and investments that both retain Brazil’s innovative edge and sustain the natural ecosystems that enable its agriculture to thrive out to the year 2050.”
To do so, notes the report, food producers must have “the markets, incentives, technical support and capital needed to adopt advanced farming and ranching practices that enable them to produce more and be rewarded for their nature-positive practices.” There must also be investment into digital agriculture solutions, robotics and automation.
Brazil is already a leader in some areas of agtech. Crop biologicals are a booming business in the country thanks to a regulatory framework that enables speedy deployment of products to the field. Where regenerative agriculture is concerned, Brazil is something of a global superpower when it comes to no-till farming.
At the same time, Brazil has much work to do around things like curbing deforestation and addressing the impacts of industrial agriculture. And like other regions, it also feels the impacts of climate change, which “can create additional pressure on Brazil’s production and trade potential and the world’s food system.”
Six ways Brazil can meet rising global demand for food
For Brazil’s agricultural sector to continue serving as “one of the world’s great breadbaskets,” Atlantic Council makes the following six recommendations:
1. Ensure policymakers in Brazil stay committed to global food security, “in particular during geopolitical upheavals and climate-driven drought.” A major part of this commitment will be “ensuring food can move across borders” that embraces global trade and avoids “protectionist measures” around exporting food.
Atlantic Council notes that Brazil’s host role for the 2024 G20 summit and for COP30 in 2025 “give [the country] important platforms for marshaling that resolve.”
2. Brazil will need to invest more in infrastructure like roads, railways, storage and processing facilities, and ports to “become an even more competitive agricultural exporter in at least some major crops, including soybeans.”
3. Scale regenerative agriculture practices. Here, partnerships with the government can play a role in rewarding farmers for switching to practices like no till, cover cropping, and integrated pest management systems, among others.
4. Prioritize underutilized pastureland. Roughly 28 million hectares of Brazil’s degraded pastureland could be “brought into grain production,” notes the report, which would increase total grain planted without the need for further deforestation and habitat loss.
“Brazil has available arable land—from degraded pastureland and existing cropland—to increase its agricultural output without the need for further deforestation.”
5. Expand double cropping. In tropical regions, which support year-round growing conditions, the practice of double-cropping has long existed. In Brazil, it helped to fuel the more than fourfold increase in grain production over the last few decades.
“This system should encompass as high a percent of Brazil’s farmland as practically feasible, given its dual roles to expand agricultural output and limit pressures on converting Brazil’s forested land to agricultural production.”
Similarly, it “presents a unique and significant potential to produce food with lower carbon intensity.”
6. Utilizing water-efficient irrigation will also be critical, particularly as Brazil faces more droughts from climate change.
Brazil should prioritize adoption and expansion of water-efficient irrigated systems in those regions that can sustainably support water withdrawals from underground and surface sources.
Atlantic Council’s report underscores the fact that Brazil is already “an important and reliable breadbasket for the world.”
To become even more resilient, “Brazil must strategically prepare its domestic capabilities to meet the projected demands of 2050—and it should do so in partnership with the private sector and the international community.”
