IMAGE: A new study published in
Nature Food quantifies for the first time the impact that double-cropping had on helping Brazil achieve its national grain boom. Jing Gao, assistant professor of...
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Credit: Photo illustration by Tammy Beeson
From 1980 to 2016, grain production in Brazil increased more than fourfold, and the country now stands as the world's largest soybean exporter and the second largest exporter of corn. The two main drivers of this increase in food production were cropland expansion and double-cropping, harvesting two crops, such as corn and soybeans, from the same field in a single year.
While cropland expansion has long been recognized as one of the drivers behind the increase in Brazil's agricultural output, a new study published in