> Applause for opening vast Brazilian lands to farming

Much of it by Corporate Farming Pioneers from Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois,
etc.  NPR had a story not long ago that featured some one family of
"farmers" from Iowa who were gradually shifting their operations to
Brazil, where they had acquired something like 16,000 acres of Cerrado
land and were putting almost all of it in soybeans.  Vastly lower land and
labor costs, and virtually non-existent taxes, had them thinking that
they'd be shutting down entirely their Iowa operation within 20 years, if
all continued well in Brazil.

Hey! Let's trade ecosystems!

> Preserving virgin tracts will be important, too.








> _REGISTER  EDITORIAL BOARD_ (mailto:[log in to unmask] for
> opening vast Brazilian lands to farming)
>
>
> June 16, 2006
>
> Sometimes human progress comes in a flash, with a brilliant breakthrough
> by
> an individual genius. More often, it comes incrementally over decades with
> contributions from more than one individual.
>
> The World Food Prize  Foundation this year found a way to honor the latter
> kind of progress. Its 2006  prize will be shared by three men whose work
> has
> spanned a  half-century.
>
> Together, and with the efforts of many others as well, they  are said to
> have
> opened more new land to farming than has occurred at any time  since
> settlement of the American Midwest more than a hundred years  ago.
>
> They made farming possible in the previously barren Cerrado high  plains
> of
> Brazil, an area three times the size of Texas.
>
> "It's an  enormous accomplishment that no one person could have done,"
> said
> foundation  president Kenneth Quinn.
>
> The opening of the Cerrado raised the standard  of living in Brazil and
> may
> have shown the way to farm millions more  unproductive acres elsewhere in
> South
> America and in Africa. "Hundreds of  millions of people will benefit from
> this work," said Nobel Peace Prize laureate  and Food Prize founder Norman
> Borlaug in a press release.
>
> The prize will  go to:
>
> • A. Colin McClung, an American soil scientist whose studies in  the
> 1950s
> demonstrated how to neutralize the acidity and toxic levels of  aluminum
> in
> Cerrado soil.
>
> • Alysson Paolinelli, who served as both state  and national secretary
> of
> agriculture in Brazil and was instrumental in  establishing EMBRAPA, an
> agricultural research center, and initiating a program  for agricultural
> and rural
> development in the Cerrado.
>
> • Edson Lobato, a  Brazilian agronomist who worked at EMBRAPA, carried
> forward the work of McClung  and collaborated in bringing new technologies
> to
> farmers to transform the  region.
>
> This year's Food Prize may not be without controversy. The  opening of the
> Cerrado brought major new competition for American soybean  producers, and
> its
> conversion to high-yield agriculture threatens the existence  of a unique
> ecosystem.
>
> The Cerrado is a savanna with wildlife that  includes the giant anteater
> and
> jaguar and an estimated 10,000 plant species, a  large share of them
> exclusive
> to the region. International environmental  organizations have listed the
> Cerrado as a hot spot for threatened loss of  biodiversity, saying the
> native
> ecosystem could disappear by about  2030.
>
> In that respect, the Cerrado might be comparable to the tallgrass  prairie
> of
> the Midwest, a magnificent ecosystem that all but disappeared under  the
> plow.
>
> The world must encourage Brazil to do a better job than the  United States
> did in setting aside large tracts of its virgin lands to preserve  the
> original
> flora and fauna.
>
> Meanwhile, it's entirely fitting to  celebrate the (literally)
> groundbreaking
> work of McClung, Paolinelli and Lobato.  Whenever barren land becomes
> productive, the human condition improves. Those who  enable it deserve
> humanity's
> applause.
>
>
>
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