Case Study
June 26 2024
by Alexandra Ranson
Global demand for soy has boosted socio-economic development in central Brazil, but not without a cost. Farmers struggling with climate change and weed resistance to old herbicides are attempting to maintain their incomes by expanding their crop land.
That means burning rainforest and grassland to plant more soy: an extra 14 million football pitches worth in just five years.
"I can lose half my harvests to weeds," says Antonio, a soy and corn farmer in the Goias region of Brazil.
"Horseweed, bittergrass and whitehead broom: it is getting more and more difficult for us to manage them because they are more and more resistant to herbicides. All we can do is try to put prices up and farm more land."
