Can Brazil help with food shortages around the world?
When marize porto’s husband died suddenly in 2002, she was left with three small children and a failing cattle ranch that she had no idea how to run. Desperate, she turned to Embrapa, the Brazilian government’s agricultural research institute, for help. Today her farm in the state of Goiás is a model of technical know-how and productivity. Corn grows tall in the dry, red earth, planted upon the remnants of last season’s soyabeans. Once the corn is harvested, cattle come in to graze.