Alternative Outlook

Prices for farmland in Brazil surged by an average 14% a year to nearly quadruple over the past decade, well outpacing inflation and nearly matching gains made by São Paulo’s blue-chip Ibovespa stock index, a new study shows.

Improving diets in economies such as China have driven up prices of commodities like soybeans, corn and animal proteins, which in turn have led investment and pension funds to buy Brazilian farmland.

This has steadily pushed up the prices of and investment returns from Brazil’s increasingly productive tropical farml…

Brazil may start leasing farm land to foreigners to find a way around new legal restrictions on land sales and attract more foreign investment, the agriculture minister said.

Last year, foreigners seeking to buy large plots of land began running into legal roadblocks, after the attorney general’s office reinterpreted real estate law amid concern over property speculation by overseas investors.

But leftist President Dilma Rousseff, who took office in January, is looking for ways to ease the restrictions on foreign investment in t…

Greenwood Management has announced it is introducing a new product to its range of timbers grown in Brazilian plantations.

The firm will soon be growing a new species of timber to add to those already included in its forestry investments product range, which includes the Eucalyptus, the Black Wattle (Acacia) and Guanandi species.

The new species is semi-matured to matured Teak trees, all to be grown on plantations. Teak timber, well known for its strong grains and texture, is often used in the carpentry trade and the manufacture of f…

Clean technology will have a strong future in Brazil as its farmers continue to feed much of the world.

Brazil’s massive economic growth could have environmental consequences in the future, and the two-fold punch of an increasing population and an agricultural boom threatens its plentiful water supply. Nanotechnology and cleantech entrepreneurs, however, will find opportunity in Latin America’s largest economy.

While many countries still suffer from an economic hangover due to the 2008 global financial crisis, Brazil’s economy continu…