![]() ![]() New river ports, fertilizer and mechanization have fueled explosive growth in the crop agricultural sector, especially for soybeans. In the late 1990s, multi-national corporations such as Cargill began investing in infrastructure throughout the south-central Amazon. ![]() Pasture area also expanded rapidly because soils found throughout much of the region are poor in nutrients following forest slash and burn, and crop production cannot be maintained in the face of degradation of soils and lost vegetation productivity. Area planted to soybeans has increased from roughly 1 million hectares in 1970 to more than 23 million hectares in 2010, second only to the United States.įor more than three decades, deforestation in the Amazon has been driven by the expansion of pasturelands for cattle production. Over the past fifty years, production has increased from 26 million to 260 million tons. Soybean production has become a significant force for economic development in Brazil, but has come at the cost of expansion into non-protected forests in the Amazon and native savanna in the Cerrado.
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