Feeding the world without levelling the rainforest

With its plentiful sun, water and land, Brazil is quickly surpassing other countries in food production and exports. But can it continue to make agricultural gains without destroying the Amazon?

NATURE Magazine has recently published this quite interesting article about  the decreasing deforestation levels in Brazil (http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100728/full/466554a.html). 

Although I feel compelled to take it for granted, living and working in the Amazon makes me think and rethink about the article in different ways.

The recent achievements and crop researches made by Embrapa researchers are impressive and can definitely help increase crop yelds, but on the other side, there has been at  big issue about governmental policies about the agribusiness. But who gets the real benefits of it? Not the common man. Not the small farmers, who are being left outside the economical boom. Immense soy fields replace the landscape of the Cerrado in the plain of Mato Grosso, going up north in what they call the "transition zone". The Cerrado is not considered an important natural resource by the farmers.  Totally wrong idea. I recently had the opportunity to visit a wonderful initiative about small farmers in the Cerrado region. Definitely worth a visit to their website : http://www.emporiodocerrado.org.br/

The Amazon must definitely not be touched, less yet deforested. The Amazon has immense non-timber resources that are by far more valuable than cattle or soybeans. The forest is democratic, it does allow small farmers to live from it in a sustainable way. The forest must stand!