Environmental advocates routinely oppose mining and hydrocarbon-development projects because they believe that remote areas of the Amazon should remain pristine. Typically, they organize their opposition during the environmental review process with campaigns that focus on issues that are local (water quality), regional (biodiversity) and global (climate change). Occasionally, they succeed in stopping a project, but […]
There are three fundamental rules of financial planning: (1) save continuously, (2) invest in a diversified portfolio of assets and (3) exercise patience via a long-term strategy. This common-sense advice is at the heart of Conservation Agriculture (CA), a land-management philosophy that seeks to reconcile the technologies of modern agriculture with the time-worn practices of […]
There are two major cultivated species of coffee: arabica (Coffea arabica) and robusta (Coffea canephora), each with a multitude of varieties adapted to a broad range of ecological conditions. Arabica represents seventy per cent of global production, while robusta represents about thirty per cent. Traditionally, arabica has been cultivated as ‘shade coffee’ grown at higher […]
Brazil is both a massive producer and consumer of beef. Domestic consumption has expanded steadily year on year with slight variations linked to periodic recessions, but most of the recent growth is caused by Brazil’s increasing dominance in global export markets. Most of that growth has occurred within the Legal Amazon. Prior to 2000, exports […]
Packing plants are important to producers because the construction of a modern facility will stimulate the growth and diversification of the livestock sector. Modern packing plants must be located on a good (preferably paved) road to avoid wear-and-tear on refrigeration trucks that transport the meat to urban markets. The number of modern industrial-scale packing plants […]