Argentina oil grab fuels Brazil’s biodiesel confusion

Possibly the last unexplored angle on Argentina’s abrupt nationalization of oil company YPF that snatches the stake held by Spain’s Repsol – a perpetuation of the confusion over Brazil's potentially lucrative but currently struggling biodiesel industry.

A dose of common sense about food from an agribusiness nation

The future bread-basket of the world. It’s a phrase that Brazilians say with pride, and one that big agricultural conglomerates like to repeat, particularly when faced by criticism of environmental types worried about the degradation of land or the excessive use of chemicals in food production. Factory farming and large-scale agribusiness are increasingly seen as the only ways to feed a global population approaching 7 billion.

Miss Deforestation’s surprise turnaround

A high-profile winner of Greenpeace’s Golden Chainsaw Award, a woman dubbed “Miss Desmatamento,” Katia Abreu has had a surprising change of heart.

Brazil gives up on land reform

Latin American governments have for fifty years tried and largely failed to carry out land reform that relieve rural poverty. Brazil, which has more land to distribute than any other Latin American nation, is no longer trying.