CORE UNIT: REGIONAL GEOGRAPHY i R Manaus Macapá Belem São Luis Teresina Recife Salvador Cuiaba
Exclusively large-scale commercial farming
Predominantly large-scale commercial farming
Small-scale commercial and subsistence farming
Improved grazing Unimproved grazing
Hunting, fishing, gathering, subsistence farming and small-scale lumbering
Fig. 9 Agricultural land use in Brazil São Paulo Brasilia
Rio de Janeiro Vitória
Fortaleza Porto Alegre
The increase in soya bean production is partly due to the need for non-genetically modified soya in Europe and the demands for safe animal food by European farmers following BSE scares. However, soya bean production is linked to increased deforestation in the Amazon as land is cleared for soya plantations. Brazil contains a large area (547 million hectares) of cerrado – the savanna grassland that is slowly being converted to the production of grain, oil seed crops and beef cattle. The tropical climate over much of Brazil has limited wheat production to the southern states where temperatures are cooler. Because of this, Brazil imported over 10 million tonnes of wheat in 2010. Sugar cane production employs over 900,000 people. Fifty per cent of the sugar cane is used to produce a biofuel called ethanol which is used as an alternative to petrol.
Ninety per cent of the sugar cane is grown in south-central Brazil.
Fig. 10 Soya bean transportation and storage in Brazil 402