Medium.com had a long but interesting article on the Cerrado in Brazil and how it is being converted to cropland to export soy to China. When I think of Brazil I think of tropical rainforests, but it actually has another celebrated biome, the Cerrado, a grassland located in central Brazil. With the current demand for soy coming which has depleted its soils and so has to import more soy than it used to), growers in Brazil are hurrying to take advantage of the market to grow soybeans there.
What is really interesting to me is that the techniques often talked about here in the US, such as the addition of lime to the naturally acidic soils there, has caused problems for the farms there because the change of pH of the soil has caused it to be less clumpy, leading to increases in erosion in heavy rain and associated loss of soil. If you are interested in soil health and ways to manage your farm, you might be interested in this story about unintended consequences of changing things without knowing what the results will be.
Will the call to “save the Cerrado” be the next environmental cause in Brazil? It will be interesting to see.
