Author: YourVoiz

Monica Piccinini

25 February 2026

As artificial intelligence and cloud platforms move into the fields, a new alliance between Big Tech and agribusiness is reshaping who controls food, and who bears the risks.

IPES-Food, the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems, has released Head in the Cloud, a report that challenges one of the most compelling narratives in contemporary agriculture: that digitalisation offers a straightforward solution to hunger, climate instability and rural decline.

The report’s findings are worrying. The rapid roll-out of artificial intelligence, cloud computing and precision farming platforms isn’t focused on farmers’ priorities. Instead, agricultural technology is increasing corporate control over food production, deepening farmer dependency and accelerating environmental harm.

A new alliance

Across multiple regions, major technology companies, including Amazon, Microsoft, Google and Alibaba, have joined forces with agribusiness giants in seeds, agrochemicals and farm machinery. The result is an increasingly integrated digital infrastructure that reaches into every layer of industrial farming.

Satellites scan the fields, remote sensors measure soil moisture and nutrient levels, and automated tractors collect data as they move. This information is sent to cloud-based platforms where proprietary algorithms produce recommendations, such as which seed variety to plant, when to spray crops, and how much fertiliser to use. This data is used to refine products, influence markets and generate profit.

Decisions about what qualifies as “innovation” and which technologies get government support are often political. These decisions influence who holds power in the food system.

Lim Li Ching, co-chair of IPES-Food, describes this shift in stark terms. She said:

We are witnessing a quiet takeover of farming by Big Tech. But farming by algorithm is not the future farmers asked for.

Under the banner of innovation, tech giants are consolidating control over agriculture and biological heritage, sidelining the farmers who already grow our food in sustainable and resilient ways.

We can choose a different path. We must reimagine and govern innovation differently. It’s time to reclaim innovation for people and the planet.

Inequality

Digital farming systems are expensive. Precision technologies require specialised machinery, subscription-based software, reliable high-speed internet, technical training and ongoing technical support contracts. For large industrial operations, these expenses may be absorbed as capital investment, but for small and medium-scale farmers, this means new loans and debt.

The report shows how these technologies create dependency, described as technology lock-in. Once a farmer invests in a specific machinery or digital system, switching becomes complex and costly.

Machinery, seeds and chemical inputs are often designed to work together within proprietary platforms. Data may be stored in non-transferable formats, tying farmers to a single provider and pushing for continual upgrades to remain commercially competitive.

Pat Mooney, an IPES-Food expert, warned that this concentration of power comes at a dangerous moment. He said:

The world’s food security is more uncertain than it has been in decades, amid escalating global crises.

Yet Big Tech and Big Ag are jointly advancing proprietary AI, data platforms, and biotechnologies that narrow diversity when we need more of it, lengthen supply chains that should be shortened, and concentrate information that ought to be shared among farmers.

But our study shows that bottom-up, ecosystem-grounded, farmer-led innovations are already responding to today’s food crises – despite policy barriers and limited public investment.

Instead of changing the root problems of industrial farming, digital platforms often make them stronger. They increase the use of chemicals in large monoculture farms rather than reducing them. And instead of supporting local food systems, they make global supply chains even bigger.

It’s like being stuck on a treadmill. Farmers may see short-term improvements in efficiency or productivity, but prices soon fall and they feel pressure to invest in new technology again. Those who can’t keep up, often small farmers, are forced out, leading to fewer farms and the decline of rural communities.

Rather than making farming more equal, digital agriculture could make the gap even bigger between large industrial farms and smaller, community-based producers.

Control

If land was the defining source of past agricultural empires, data is fast becoming the new frontier.

Farmers don’t own the data generated on their own land, and in many cases, they can’t access the algorithms that transform it into advice. They have limited oversight over how their data is used.

Nettie Wiebe, a farmer and IPES-Food expert, reflects on what that means in practice. He said:

We’re being sold a vision of farming run by AI and robots. But farming is built on judgement developed over years in the field. When farmers lose control over our data and decisions, we lose control over our farms. That’s a dangerous path.

Real innovation doesn’t come from Silicon Valley – it comes from farmers, farmworkers, and Indigenous Peoples working with the land and with each other.

Around the world, farmers are developing tools, restoring soil fertility, breeding crops for a changing climate, and managing pests ecologically. That’s real innovation. It builds resilience without locking us into debt or dependency.

Digital tools focus more on numbers and data than on lived experience. Indigenous peoples and local communities, whose farming knowledge has protected biodiversity for centuries, are often left out of these systems.

The hidden footprint

Digital agriculture is often presented as environmentally progressive, but the infrastructure behind it is material and energy intensive.

Data centres use huge amounts of electricity and water. Servers and devices depend on minerals extracted from already stressed landscapes. Precision technologies might slightly reduce chemical use, but they usually reinforce farming methods that harm soil and biodiversity over time.

The “cloud” isn’t invisible, it leaves a real environmental footprint.

Meanwhile, farmer-led alternatives, participatory breeding, agroecology, and community seed-saving, get little support. These methods build resilience through diversity, shared knowledge and natural ecosystem management, rather than relying on expensive, proprietary technology.

Yiching Song, IPES-Food expert, highlights their significance. She said:

Our research shows that farmer-led seed systems and participatory breeding are among the most effective responses to climate change and biodiversity loss.

These innovations integrate scientific and farmers’ knowledge, strengthening both ecosystems and livelihoods. If we are serious about climate action, policy and investment must recognise and actively support these systems, not sideline them.

Political

The debate over digital farming is ultimately about governance and power.

Who decides which technologies are developed and scaled? Who owns the data? Who takes the risks and who benefits?

In a time of multiple crises, including climate breakdown, biodiversity collapse, and geopolitical instability, food security is already fragile. Concentrating control over seeds, data and decision-making in a handful of corporations just adds another layer of vulnerability.

IPES-Food is asking governments and funders to create stronger rules so that new ideas and technologies are fair and responsible. They also want more funding to go to local, community-led projects that focus on sustainability. In addition, they are calling for limits on the power of large technology and agriculture companies, and for a shift in how people think and talk about innovation.

As the Head in the Cloud report points out, the question isn’t whether farming should innovate, it’s whether innovation will serve big companies or the people and ecosystems that food systems rely on.

Featured image: IPES-Food.

Monica Piccinini

19 February 2026

Brazil’s forests do more than store carbon, they regulate the water systems that sustain rivers, agriculture and cities across South America. As deforestation and degradation accelerates, scientists warn the country is entering a hidden water crisis with global consequences.

At sunrise along the Rio Negro, fishermen often speak about water as if it were alive. They read the river’s moods, measure time by its levels and mark the seasons through its currents. For generations, waterways across the Amazon have shaped daily life. Now, those familiar rhythms are becoming harder to read, and trust.

Brazil is often described as a nation shaped by water. It holds roughly 12 per cent of the world’s freshwater reserves, while the Amazon basin forms the largest freshwater system on Earth. The Cerrado, the country’s vast tropical savanna, feeds rivers that supply cities and agriculture across South America.

On paper, Brazil appears water secure. However, scientists warn that this security depends heavily on ecosystems that are gradually losing their ability to regulate rainfall and river flows.

Augusto Getirana, research scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Centre in the Hydrological Sciences Laboratory, explains how Brazil’s water systems influence global food supply:

Brazil is the world’s largest producer of coffee, soybeans, and beef, among other water-dependent commodities.

A water crisis in Brazil that results in a disruption in domestic food production quickly becomes a global crisis. We saw that in 2021, when prices of these commodities increased substantially worldwide.

Luciana Gatti, senior researcher at Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE), argues that deforestation and degradation in the Amazon driven by Brazil’s export-driven agricultural expansion is directly tied to the water crisis:

There’s been an enormous increase in exports of wood, beef, soy, corn, and minerals. This is a project based on destroying nature to sell primary commodities.

Water systems are harmed by these development models, with severe consequences for ecosystems and the Brazilian population, while concentrating wealth and power among large landowners.

A water network

Brazil’s water system depends on a delicate partnership between the Amazon rainforest and the Cerrado. Together, they form a vast hydrological network that moves moisture through the atmosphere, stores groundwater and stabilises river basins across much of South America.

Water insecurity in Brazil isn’t just about declining rainfall. Researchers describe it  as the weakening of natural climate regulation processes, a gradual shift with potentially far-reaching consequences.

Research from the University of São Paulo estimates that the Amazon deforestation accounts for roughly 74.5 per cent of rainfall reduction and 16.5 per cent temperature increase during the dry season.

The Amazon plays a central role in South America’s water cycle. Trees draw moisture from the soil and release it into the atmosphere, generating currents of humid air often described as “flying rivers”.

These invisible air currents carry rainfall far beyond the forest, sustaining agricultural regions, reservoirs, and major urban centres. For example, a large percentage of rainfall supplying São Paulo’s Cantareira water system depends on moisture originating in the Amazon.

For many Brazilians, these atmospheric water currents are invisible, but their effects shape when crops grow, reservoirs refill and whether rivers remain navigable.

According to Brazil’s National Water and Basic Sanitation Agency (ANA), on 30 January, the Cantareira system was reported to be operating at 22 per cent.

As forests shrink, scientists warn that this moisture recycling process weakens. Reduced tree cover means less moisture in the air, rainfall becomes more erratic, and rivers flows grow increasingly unstable. Some regions face prolonged drought, while others experience intense rainfall over shorter periods.

Researchers say these extremes aren’t isolated anomalies but signs of mounting ecological stress. Drier soil reduces groundwater recharge, while rivers respond more sharply to both drought and heavy rainfall.

Large-scale climate events, such as El Niño, La Niña, and warm conditions in the North Tropical Atlantic (NTA) only add to the strain, triggering floods or droughts that cascade through river systems and aquifers.

Along the Amazon’s waterways, communities are already feeling the consequences. Fish stocks are declining, drinking water is less unreliable, and river transport routes are disrupted during dry seasons, isolating villages and restricting access to food and essential supplies.

Brazil’s overlooked water source

While the Amazon often dominates headlines, scientists emphasise that the Cerrado plays an equally critical role in maintaining Brazil’s water balance. Covering roughly a quarter of the country, the biome feeds major river systems, including the São Francisco, Paraná and Tocantins.

Gatti stresses that the Cerrado biome is fundamental in sustaining Brazil’s water systems and river basins:

The Cerrado contains around 80 per cent of Brazil’s hydrographic basins. It functions like an upside-down forest, concentrated in deep root systems. These roots allow rainfall to infiltrate gradually and recharge groundwater reserves.

When deforestation occurs, the natural buffering system disappears. Rainwater is no longer absorbed properly. The soil becomes exposed and water runs off instead of penetrating the ground.

For generations, rural and Indigenous communities have depended on these groundwater-fed streams for farming, fishing and cultural practices tied to seasonal water cycles.

But the Cerrado is disappearing fast. Soy cultivation, cattle ranching, and large-scale monoculture have replaced vast areas of native vegetation. Shallow-rooted crops capture less water, reduce groundwater recharge and accelerate soil erosion. Streams that once supported rural farming communities are shrinking or disappearing altogether.  

Expanding industrial pressure

Brazil’s agricultural sector has become a pillar of economic growth, but it has also intensified pressure on water resources.

Demand for irrigation is increasing, while fertilisers and pesticides frequently run off into river systems polluting the water, soil and wildlife. Globally, agriculture accounts for 70 per cent of freshwater use, a pattern reflected in Brazil’s agribusiness expansion.

Gatti emphasises the role of international commodity demand in sustaining deforestation:

It’s hypocritical to blame Brazil alone for failing to combat deforestation while countries such as the United States, those in Europe, China, the UK, and others continue to buy products linked to deforestation.

If they stopped buying timber, meat, soy, corn and minerals produced in deforested areas, deforestation could end very quickly.

Fires introduce another layer of risk. Burned landscapes absorb and release water unevenly, increasing flood risk during rainy periods and worsening drought conditions during dry months. Repeated fires are altering forest composition in parts of the Amazon, potentially weakening rainfall generation over time.

Gatti argues that fire emissions are among the main contributors to the crisis:

In 2024, the Amazon recorded its highest carbon emissions on record due largely to fires. Brazil’s ministry of science, technology and innovation (MCTI) treats emissions from Amazon fires as net zero in its official methodology. Yet fires represent the Amazon’s largest source of carbon emissions.

In 2024, fires burned across 3.3 million hectares of the Amazon, releasing roughly 791 million tons of CO₂, about what Germany emits in a year. For the first time, forest degradation from fire was overtaken deforestation as the Amazon’s top carbon culprit.

Mining operations further strain water systems. Rivers courses are sometimes diverted, forests cleared and waterways contaminated with chemicals, reducing the amount of safe freshwater available for drinking, fisheries, agriculture, transport and ecosystems.

Scientists warn that if deforestation and ecosystem degradation continue, river flows and rainfall patterns could become progressively less predictable, threatening agriculture and urban water supplies.

The United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH) describes this emerging challenge as “water bankruptcy”, a situation in which freshwater is consumed faster than nature can replenish it.

Experts warn that unequal access to water could deepen social inequality, fuel migration and increase the risk of conflict in vulnerable regions.

Political

Despite mounting scientific evidence, water scarcity is still widely perceived as a distant or regional problem in a country historically defined by abundance.

At the same time, policy decisions are reshaping the rivers themselves. Signed by Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in August 2025, Decree 12,600/2025 added the Tapajós, and Tocantins rivers (state of Pará), as well as the Madeira river (state of Amazonas) to Brazil’s privatisation pipeline to expand shipping along the Northern Arc.

Hydrologists and riverside communities warn that dredging riverbeds and removing rock to keep these routes open for larger cargo vessels could disrupt sediment movement and seasonal flood patterns. In a basin already strained by intensifying droughts, these changes could further weaken water security for ecosystems and the people who depend on them.

Getirana highlights that Brazil’s emerging water crisis is rooted in longstanding political and cultural practices:

Many of Brazil’s political and economic decisions have been based on the idea that it’s a water-rich country. Poor political decisions that resulted in negative impacts on the environment and water availability are not party- or ideology-related.

It’s the culture in the country. It’s been happening for decades, maybe centuries, regardless who’s in power. Poor water management is rooted in Brazil’s culture.

A political change needs, first, a mindset shift in the Brazilian population. Maybe a way to change that mindset is by demonstrating how poor management is impacting their livelihoods and finances.

Gatti warns that in Brazil, scientific research is often overlooked in policy development:

Scientific evidence isn’t reaching decision-makers. Promises of zero deforestation by 2030 risk being too late because parts of the Amazon may already be approaching ecological tipping points.

Although Brazil has experienced political changes in leadership, structural land-use policies driving deforestation have remained largely unchanged.

Recovery

Despite growing concern, some scientists emphasise that recovery remains possible.

Gatti highlights that several measures could make a considerable difference to Brazil’s water security:

Zero deforestation across the entire country by 2027, not just in the Amazon, is essential to stabilise rainfall and water systems.

Reducing cattle herd size, establishing limits on large monoculture farming and requiring forest restoration within agricultural landscapes would help reduce environmental pressure and water instability.

Expanding agroforestry systems on a large scale could help restore ecological balance while maintaining agricultural productivity.

Getirana argues that reforming water governance should be the first step in restoring Brazil’s water stability:

I believe that reforming water governance would be the baseline for other measures, such as restoring degraded land and tackling climate mitigation. Additionally, policies that prevent water from being polluted could have almost immediate impacts.

Some researchers are examining whether recognition of rivers as living entities could provide stronger environmental protection. A project led by the University of Leeds is exploring how such legal frameworks might help prevent pollution, deforestation and industrial over-exploitation.

For communities along the Rio Negro and throughout Brazil’s interior, the crisis is already deeply personal. Rivers are less predictable, rainfall patterns are shifting and water quality is declining. Their daily experiences reflect a broader reality: Brazil’s water future depends on the survival of the ecosystems that sustain it.

Protecting Brazil’s forests may ultimately determine not only the country’s environmental future, but the stability of water systems that millions of people depend on every day.

Disclaimer: Augusto Getirana speaks in his personal capacity and not on behalf of NASA Goddard Space Flight Centre.

Featured image: Parintins, Brazil. September 2023. Boats stand at the edge of a river whose water level has dropped due to drought. The world’s largest rainforest area is suffering from the worst drought in over a century. Credit: Aguilar Abecassis/dpa/Alamy Live News

Monica Piccinini

1 February 2026

Often overlooked in global conservation debates, Brazil’s Cerrado is being rapidly transformed by industrial agriculture, with UK trade playing a direct role in the loss of water systems, biodiversity and climate stability.

As global demand for commodities grows, Brazil’s Cerrado is being lost at an alarming rate, with consequences that reach far beyond South America. This extending mix of grasslands, savannas, and forests plays a key role in South America’s water systems and climate, yet it’s one of the continent’s most threatened ecosystems.

The destruction of the Cerrado reaches the UK through the food we eat, turning a regional crisis into a shared responsibility with global consequences.

A scientific review in Nature Conservation finds that over half of the Cerrado’s native vegetation has vanished, mostly in the last five decades. That’s roughly 1,000,000 square kilometres, larger than France and Germany combined, now replaced by farmland, pastures, and expanding towns.

Often described as Brazil’s hydrological engine, the Cerrado feeds eight of the country’s twelve major river basins. Its continued degradation threatens water security far beyond its borders, with consequences felt across much of South America.

According to Cássio Cardoso Pereira, researcher at the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG) and the lead author of the review, the ecological damage extends far beyond habitat loss:

The most urgent consequence is the disruption of the Cerrado’s role as a continental water regulator. The loss of native vegetation reduces aquifer recharge, dries up rivers that supply important hydrographic basins in South America, and exacerbates droughts and extreme heatwaves.

At the same time, we are losing unique biodiversity and enormous underground carbon reserves, which makes this destruction a direct threat to both species and climate stability.

The Cerrado is the second largest Ecodomain in South America, after the Amazon, occupying 23% of Brazil’s surface.

The authors of the review use the term “Ecodomain” to refer to large ecological areas that include multiple ecosystems, biomes, and ecoregions. The term describes these regions as they existed in their original extent, regardless of their current state of conservation.

Soy and beef

The destruction of the Cerrado is not driven by Brazil alone, it’s closely tied to global demand for soy and beef, commodities that bind this landscape directly to the UK’s food system and climate footprint.

Industrial agriculture drives much of this loss. Since satellite monitoring began in 2001, over 326,000 square kilometres of the Cerrado have been cleared, sometimes faster than even the Amazon.

Soy plantations and cattle ranches now dominate large areas that once supported extraordinary biodiversity. These landscapes, mainly monocultures, depend on heavy machinery, fertilisers and agrochemicals, leaving little room for ecosystems to recover.

The review highlights the MATOPIBA region, covering the states of Maranhão, Tocantins, Piauí and Bahia, as a focal point of recent land-use change, where agricultural expansion continues to push deep into remaining native vegetation.

Deforestation is reshaping the Cerrado’s climate: the rainy season now arrives about a month later, overall rainfall has dropped, and daytime temperatures have climbed roughly by 1.5^oC.

As rain becomes less predictable, farming grows increasingly dependent on irrigation. This creates a dangerous feedback loop, accelerating water depletion and deepening ecological breakdown across the region.

Much of the Cerrado’s carbon lies underground, locked in roots that can reach over 15 metres deep. This “inverted forest” helps plants endure long dry seasons while quietly replenishing aquifers.

When native vegetation is cleared, that long-stored carbon is released. Landscapes that once absorbed emissions are transformed into sources of greenhouse gases, intensifying the climate pressures already bearing down on the region.

Ecological breakdown

The Cerrado plays a central role in Brazil’s water system. It gives rise to eight river basins and sits above three immense aquifers holding vast freshwater reserves. Rising demand from industrial farming, hydropower and expanding cities is placing these systems under relentless stress.

Large-scale water extraction, combined with widespread agrochemical use, is contaminating soils and waterways while draining underground reserves. Rivers are shrinking, ecosystems are destabilising and biodiversity is declining as water systems lose their resilience.

Hydropower development has accelerated the damage. Dams fragment rivers, disrupt natural flows and blocks fish migration routes that both wildlife and local communities rely on. Over time, these changes are fundamentally reshaping entire river systems.

The review also documents extensive fire-driven degradation that often goes uncounted in official deforestation figures. Natural fires in the Cerrado are rare, usually sparked by lightening, yet an estimated 99 per cent of fires in Brazil are caused by human activity linked to land clearing and agricultural expansion.

Between 1985 and 2022, around 40 per cent of the Cerrado burned at least once. Nearly two-thirds of that area burned repeatedly, killing fire-sensitive species and encouraging invasive grasses that trap landscapes in cycles of degradation.

The Ecodomain supports around 13,000 plant species, more than 3,200 vertebrates and tens of thousands of invertebrates. Roughly a third of its plant life is endemic, found nowhere else on Earth.

Yet only a small share of the Cerrado is strictly protected. Many threatened species, particularly plants and insects, remain poorly assessed and politically overlooked. Ecosystems with lower tree cover, such as grasslands, continue to be undervalued despite their immense ecological importance.

It’s not only a matter of protecting threatened species. Around 80 Indigenous peoples live on more than 200 recognised territories across the Cerrado, many safeguarding the region’s last stretches of intact vegetation.

For generations, these communities have cared for the land, guiding rivers, protecting wildlife, and keeping landscapes resilient. Many territories remain only partially recognised under the law, leaving both people and ecosystems exposed to the expanding pressures of agriculture and deforestation.

Rodolfo Salm, ecologist, activist, lecturer at the Federal University of Pará (UFPA), and one of the authors of the review, says today’s legal gaps are rooted in a long history of dispossession, now reinforced by new laws:

For much of the Cerrado’s history, Indigenous peoples were progressively expelled from their territories, first by cattle ranching, later by large-scale grain production. This process accelerated with the move of Brazil’s capital to Brasília and deepened under the military dictatorship of the 1960s and 70s.

Today, the recently approved Temporal Framework Law (Marco Temporal), which restricts the right to legal recognition of an Indigenous territory to those areas that were effectively occupied by Indigenous peoples at the time of the 1988 Constitution, combined with complex legal and bureaucratic barriers, has made the recognition of new Indigenous lands in the Cerrado almost impossible.

This is a severe blow to biodiversity, because Indigenous territories are among the most effective and reliable areas for ecosystem protection.

The UK’s stake in the Cerrado

Many people in the UK would be surprised to learn how closely their diets are tied to this distant landscape.

Britain imports millions of tonnes of soy each year, most of it used as animal feed. Around 90% goes to livestock, particularly poultry and pigs, linking the destruction of the Cerrado directly to the meat supply chain.

We’re deeply dependent on the rest of the world, importing around 40 to 50 per cent of our food. And much of this from regions that are hammered themselves by the climatic impacts that we’ve been talking about, said Professor Paul Behrens at the National Emergency Briefing in London last November.

Investigations by NGO Mighty Earth show that major global traders supplying the UK and European markets continue to source soy from areas linked to the Cerrado destruction, despite repeated public commitments to sustainability.

Mighty Earth has also warned that weak UK due-diligence rules risk turning Britain into a dumping ground for deforestation-linked soy and beef, as companies divert high-risk supply away from more tightly regulated markets.

Despite government pledges, UK imports of soy and beef continue to drive the Cerrado destruction through animal feed supply chains.

Philip Fearnside, research professor at Brazil’s National Institute for Research in Amazonia (INPA), and one of the authors of the review, explains why voluntary pledges and sustainability codes have fallen short, highlighting the overlooked indirect impacts of commodity production:

Most soy expansion in the Amazon and the Cerrado occurs not through direct forest clearing, but by converting existing cattle pastures into soy plantations. This transformation is usually the result of ranchers selling their land to soy planters, rather than switching to soy farming themselves.

Because land suitable for soy commands high prices, ranchers often use the proceeds to purchase much larger, cheaper tracts of rainforest deeper in the Amazon, indirectly driving further deforestation. These indirect impacts have largely escaped all existing monitoring and certification schemes.

The UK can establish legally binding rules for companies supplying commodities like soy, requiring them to account for both direct and indirect environmental impacts. By tracking these combined effects, the UK could avoid sourcing soy linked to widespread deforestation in both the Cerrado and the Amazon.

The UK Forest Risk Commodity Regulation (UKFRC) under the Environment Act 2021 has yet to come into force. And because the law only targets illegal clearing, vast areas of land that have been legally converted, but are still wiping out unique habitats, remain unprotected.

Much of this damage remains hidden from view. The soy required for animal feed is a “ghost footprint”, invisible in labels, but very real in climate and ecological terms.

Pereira says the drivers of the Cerrado destruction are well known and largely tolerated:

The rapid destruction of the Cerrado is driven primarily by the expansion of agribusiness, especially soy and livestock farming, enabled by permissive land-use policies and deficient enforcement.

Unlike the Amazon, most deforestation in the Cerrado is still legally permitted, which protects corporations and supply chains from oversight. International accountability has failed because global climate and biodiversity frameworks largely neglect grasslands and savannas, treating them as disposable landscapes rather than critical ecosystems.

A warning, and a choice

According to the Nature Conservation review, the Cerrado is being pushed towards collapse.

Fearnside warns that continued destruction of the Cerrado isn’t just a regional crisis but a global risk, accelerating climate breakdown while undermining water systems, biodiversity and the communities that depend on them:

The loss of the Cerrado contributes directly to global warming and to the breakdown of water recycling, just as Amazon deforestation does. Together, these processes destroy biodiversity and the human societies that depend on native vegetation.

Current practices are pushing the global climate toward tipping points that, if crossed, would be devastating not only for Brazil, but for the world. Avoiding this outcome requires more than protecting forests alone: it means ending the clearing of the Cerrado and the Amazon and rapidly ending the use of fossil fuels.

For the UK, the Cerrado isn’t a distant problem. Its fate connects directly to our imports, diets, and daily choices. Climate responsibility starts long before the shoreline, in our kitchens, on our plates, and through the choices we make every day.

Featured image: Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer (left) meeting with the President of Brazil Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva for a bilateral meeting in New York ahead of addressing the United Nations General Assembly. Alamy/Leon Neal

Monica Piccinini

4 December 2025

Every week, millions of shoppers in the UK pick up everyday staples, including bread, fruit, vegetables, trusting that they are safe to eat, but recent analysis and studies suggest that many of these products carry multiple pesticide residues whose long-term effects on human health remain poorly understood. 

According to a new analysis by Pesticide Action Network UK (PAN UK), three-quarters of fruit and a quarter of vegetables tested by the UK government contain a cocktail of pesticides.

Of the 17 types of produce examined, scientists detected 123 different pesticides. Among them are chemicals linked to cancer, and others known to disrupt human hormones, the systems that shape fertility and healthy development.

Grapes emerged as one of the most contaminated foods, with one single sample containing residues from 16 different pesticides.

The ‘invisible’ cocktail effect

Shoppers often hear that chemical residues remain “within safe limits”, but those limits only apply to one chemical at a time, even though we rarely just eat one.

Regulators state that staying under MRLs (maximum residue levels) is considered safe. The rules were designed around single chemicals, assuming that each is unlikely to cause harm if applied correctly, but many scientists and campaigners argue that this system does not account for combined effects of multiple chemicals consumed over the years, or even decades.

Nick Mole, who led the analysis for PAN UK, warns that this blind spot in regulation leaves us dangerously exposed:

Safety limits are set for one pesticide at a time, completely ignoring the fact that it’s all too common for food to contain multiple chemicals. The truth is we know very little about how these chemicals interact with each other, or what this exposure to hundreds of different pesticides is doing to our health in the long term.

We do know that pesticides can become more toxic when combined, a phenomenon known as ‘the cocktail effect’. Given how high the stakes are, the government should be doing everything it can to get pesticides out of our food.

The top offenders

The new Dirty Dozen list reveals the produce most likely to carry multiple chemicals. Grapefruit comes first, followed by grapes and limes. Each of them appears regularly in supermarket promotions celebrating freshness and wellness – yet behind the marketing, contamination is widespread.

PAN UK looked at the test results to figure out which Highly Hazardous Pesticides (HHPs) showed up the most in our fruit and vegetables. Two fungicides topped the list: imazalil and thiabendazole. They were found in about 9% of samples, mostly on fruits like bananas, grapefruit and melons.

They’re used to stop mould from growing during storage and transport, but there are serious worries about their safety. Both are suspected of disrupting hormones and may even be linked to cancer.

Our daily bread

Even the food we rely on more than any other, our daily bread, is affected. The government’s tests found that almost every loaf contained chlormequat, a developmental toxin that scientists warn may harm our babies and children.

More than one in four bread samples contained glyphosate, the UK’s most used herbicide, repeatedly associated with cancers and other chronic diseases.

Almost half the bread tested contained multiple chemicals. Even the nation’s toast has become a source of chemical exposure.

While regulatory bodies argue that exposure levels detected in bread are well below thresholds considered dangerous, the absence of comprehensive studies on mixture toxicity means uncertainty remains. Low-dose, chronic exposure over decades, essentially a lifetime of daily consumption, has not been studied thoroughly.

Banned at home – yet allowed on our plates

A particularly troubling detail hides deeper in the data: nearly one-third of pesticides detected aren’t approved to be used on British farms.

Crops grown overseas using chemicals banned in the UK can still be imported and sold on British shelves. The government’s own advisory bodies have warned that this unfairly hurts UK farmers who work under stricter rules and, far worse, exposes consumers to risks regulators have already acknowledged are too great.

We’re eating the very chemicals that are considered too dangerous to be sprayed here in our farms.

The UK risks importing produce containing high levels of pesticides, including Highly Hazardous Pesticides (HHPs) already banned in the country. For instance, Brazil is the largest consumer of pesticides in the world, and half of them are HHPs.

Still, UK trade minister, Sir Chris Bryant, who describes himself a “passionate Latinophile”, said to Politico that the UK-Mercosur (South American trading bloc including Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay and Bolivia) agreement is a ‘no brainer’.

Bryant commented:

I’ve had very positive conversations in Argentina and with Brazil, but I haven’t had any conversations with Uruguay and Paraguay yet.

We deserve better

PAN UK is calling on the UK government to rethink its new pesticide-reduction strategy, which now only covers crops like grains. They argue that fruit and vegetables – the foods we and our children eat the most of, and where chemical residues are often highest – must be included if the plan is going to truly protect people and the environment.

The organisation is also calling for support to help farmers transition to safer methods, and for phasing out and banning Highly Hazardous Pesticides (HHPs) known to harm human health.

Mole emphasises that the current system can’t realistically shield us from exposure:

Pesticides appear in millions of different combinations and varying concentrations in our food so it’s simply impossible to design a system sophisticated enough to protect us from these chemical cocktails. The only way forward is to cut our overall pesticide use significantly.

This year, the UK government introduced a target to reduce pesticides in the arable sector. But this latest testing data reveals that – for the sake of our health – we urgently need to expand the target to also cover fruit and vegetables.

This isn’t a distant environmental concern; it’s a public health issue on our plates.

Most families don’t have the luxury of filling their baskets with organic alternatives. Parents shouldn’t have to scrutinise spreadsheets of chemical substances when doing their weekly shop. And farmers often say they don’t really have a choice – the system pushes them to use chemicals, while also making it harder for them to earn a fair living and stay competitive.

Food should nourish, not damage our bodies. Wanting food that doesn’t come with a side-order of chemicals shouldn’t be seen as radical, it’s a basic expectation that what we feed our families won’t harm them, and that the people growing it aren’t put at risk either.

Featured image: Bruno D Andrea / Dreamstime

Monica Piccinini

24 November 2025

Most people in the UK have little idea that the meals on their plates are closely connected to extreme weather now sweeping Brazil. Yet, the UK imports more food from Brazil than any other country outside Europe.

This means that the food on British shelves is increasingly shaped by droughts, floods, and heatwaves that are now becoming the norm in Brazil.

According to a recent report by the Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit, ECIU, almost two-fifths of the UK’s food is imported. Brazil is a major supplier of soybean, beef, chicken, coffee, sugar, and fruit, and it’s also one of the countries experiencing the fastest climate shifts.

Over the past two years, the Amazon has faced its worst drought in seven decades, the south has endured deadly floods that scientists say were made twice as likely by global warming, and extreme heat forced schools close for children’s safety.

These changes are harming the farms that supply so much of the UK’s food.

Gareth Redmond-King, international programme lead at the ECIU, said:

British families are already paying the price at the tills for climate extremes hitting both here and abroad. This year saw the UK’s second worst harvest on record.

Climate change

The Amazon’s drought left boats stuck in mud, entire communities cut off, and forest areas dry enough to burn. Meanwhile, towns in southern Brazil were underwater, destroying crops and livestock almost overnight. Heat is rising across the country, with far more days now reaching dangerous temperatures.

These events are no longer exceptional. Dry seasons are longer, rainfall is becoming erratic, and forests are losing their natural ability to recycle moisture.

The result is a weaker, less stable climate system, one that affects not only Brazilians, but also thousands of people miles away, including UK consumers.

We depend on Brazil for coffee, sugar, oranges and tropical fruits – as well as a lot of soy to feed livestock grown in the UK. In addition to the threat from climate change, vast swathes of rainforest and other biomes have been cleared to grow some of these foods; this deforestation is itself a key driver of the climate change affecting the ability to produce these foods, mentioned Redmond-King.

A Global Witness analysis shows that, despite a 2021 law meant to clean up supply chains, UK shoppers are still buying products linked to deforestation.

The group found that recent imports of beef, soy and palm oil were tied to forest loss on a scale comparable to the size of cities like Newcastle, Liverpool or Cardiff.

The Environment Act was supposed to stop companies sourcing goods from illegally cleared land, but years later it still hasn’t been enacted because of repeated government delays, leaving the UK market open to “forest-risk” products linked to deforestation and human rights abuses.

Soy: Britain’s hidden connection to Brazil

Soy is the strongest link between UK diets and Brazilian farms. Nearly all soy imported to the UK is fed to animals, mainly chickens. In 2024, the UK imported £243m of soy from Brazil.

Brazilian soy production is now under pressure from long dry spells and extreme heat. Rivers used to move the crop have dropped so low that transports have slowed or stopped. Scientists say that every 1⁰C of global warming is estimated to cut soy production by around 6%.

There’s also a much bigger danger: the Amazon’s long-term survival is at risk. Experts warn that if deforestation reaches 20-25%, the forest could tip into a state where it can no longer sustain itself; roughly 17% has already been lost.

This would change weather patterns across Brazil, making soy production even more unstable, and threatening the UK’s poultry industry.

There’s also a social, environmental, and health dimension to Brazil’s soy industry that often gets overlooked.

As Unearthed reports, the introduction of herbicide-resistant seeds reshaped the country’s soy sector, to the point where roughly 98% of today’s crop is believed to be genetically modified.

This rapid expansion hasn’t been without consequences, it has pushed soy farming into huge new areas, contributing to deforestation and sparking land disputes in regions like the Amazon and the Cerrado.

A daily habit at risk

Brazil supplies up to 35% of the UK’s green coffee beans. But coffee is highly sensitive to drought and heat. The 2023-24 drought in Brazil caused global prices to spike. By the time the shock reached the UK, supermarket coffee prices had risen more than 13%.

Millions of Britons’ morning cups are now at risk from a warming planet.

Forest loss on the menu

Beef and chicken imports connect UK shoppers directly to the forests under threat.

Cattle farming, the leading driver of Amazon deforestation, is responsible for around 80% of forest loss. High heat makes it harder for animals to survive, pushing ranchers into untouched forest areas.

The UK imports over 500,000 tonnes of Brazilian chicken each year. Because the chicken industry depends heavily on soy feed, this links British diets to the same environmental pressures affecting soy farming.

Crops at risk

Mangoes, melons, limes, papayas, and sugar that arrive in UK shops come from regions in Brazil now struggling with water shortages and heat. In the centre-south, dry conditions have cut sugar cane production, and northeastern fruit farmers are forced to use far more water to keep the crops alive.

The orange juice industry, which supplies more than 70% of global exports, is also under strain. Heat and disease have hit citrus trees across the country.

As a result, UK fruit juice prices are still about 30% higher than in 2022, and orange juice prices more than doubling since 2020.

What this means for the UK

Climate shocks in Brazil are already reflected in UK supermarkets. Food becomes more expensive when crops fail, supply chains become less reliable, and families on tight budgets are hit hardest.

Global supply chains also face more risks from plant diseases and poor harvests linked to hot weather. The UK’s dependence on food from places deeply affected by climate change makes the country more vulnerable than most people realise.

The UK climate change committee released its progress report and adaptation and it’s horrendous to look in there and see for food security, in this grid they have, they’ve got red and amber, and green, and when it comes to planning, and when it comes to actual action on adaptation, the planning for food security in the UK is red, it’s insufficient, the plans are not good enough.

There aren’t even metrics for us to understand how the threat to food security is happening, said Laurie Laybourn-Langton, associate fellow at the Chatham House sustainability accelerator during an Innovation Zero webinar last May.

A shared responsibility

The food we consume in the UK is now tied to Brazil’s forests, rivers, and farmland. When the Amazon dries, southern Brazil floods, or crops fail in the heat, the impacts don’t stay in Brazil. It travels. It influences what we can find in our supermarkets, what families can afford, and how reliable our supply chains truly are.

Climate change isn’t a distant worry anymore; it’s already shaping the price and availability of everyday meals. Understanding this connection, and choosing to act on it, means taking some of the pressure off vulnerable environments and helping to build a food system that can cope with the changes ahead.

Featured image: Dzmitry Skazau/Alamy

Monica Piccinini

10 November 2025

By late 2024, dredgers begin carving through the seabed off the coast of Presidente Kennedy, a small town in southern Espírito Santo, once known for its quiet beaches. This is the chosen site of Porto Central, Brazil’s next mega-port and one of the most ambitious private logistics projects in the country’s history.

Promoters describe Porto Central as “one the largest industrial port complexes in Latin America”, a project meant to redefine Brazil’s export future. Yet, behind the promises of jobs and progress, tension is growing along this quiet stretch of coast. Critics are questioning who truly benefits from this ambitious initiative and who bears the hidden costs.

Porto Central spans 2,000 hectares, an area roughly the size of 2,800 football pitches, with a 25-metre-deep access channel capable of hosting giant VLCC (Very Large Crude Carrier) vessels. A single VLCC can carry approximately two million barrels of crude oil.

The project would host up to 54 terminals serving oil and gas, agribusiness, minerals, containers, and even renewable energy. Construction is divided into five phases, with total investment estimated around R$16bn (approximately $2.9bn).

A city by the sea

Porto Central’s attraction is geography. Sitting halfway along Brazil’s coastline, it promises to reduce transshipment and shorten export routes for oil and gas, grains, and iron ore.

Several major backers, including TPK Logística S.A., the Dutch company Van Oord, and the European subsidiary of US-based company Modern American Recycling Services (M.A.R.S.), are supporting Porto Central’s vast project, a deepwater hub designed to link Brazil’s pre-salt oil fields, agribusiness, and mining industries directly to global trade routes.

The pitch is clear and simple: reduce transshipment costs, shorten export routes, and compete with maritime giants like Rotterdam, Singapore, and Shanghai.

Phase 1 involves four core components: dredging 60 million m³ of seabed (the equivalent of 25,000 Olympic swimming pools); constructing a south breakwater with rock quarried 26 km inland; building a deep-water bulk and liquids terminal for oil transshipment; and developing a 65-hectare back area to assemble pipelines and foundations. Implementation began in late 2024, with full operational capacity planned for the end of the decade.

Yet, beneath the display of engineering confidence, lies a tangled web of risks.

 Dredging up damage

The socio-environmental stakes are immense. Porto Central’s environmental impact report (RIMA) outlines a list of risks rarely seen in such concentration: seabed dredging that could raise turbidity suffocating coral and fish, altering sediment flow, accelerating coastal erosion.

Protected species, including sea turtles, dolphins, and even migrating whales, use this stretch of coast to feed and breed. Noise, ship traffic, and artificial light threaten those rhythms.

Artisanal fishermen, farmers, and quilombola communities, many of whom operate within sight of the dredging site, risk losing both fishing grounds and income. Past compensation programmes for similar projects have proved inconsistent.

In 2023, Brazil’s environmental agency, Ibama, issued an installation license (LI) to Porto Central relating to Phase 1 of the project, requiring extra monitoring and mitigation. Environmentalists warn that enforcement capacity remains limited.

Voices

Local voices warn that the ecological and social costs of Porto Central could far outweigh its promises. Teacher, environmentalist and activist, José Roberto da Silva Vidal, who has been following the project’s impact in Presidente Kennedy, spoke with deep concern:

It’s heartbreaking to see what’s happening to our land and sea as Porto Central moves forward. The restinga forests are being cleared, rocks are blasted apart, and the water that sustains life here is under threat.

Every new truck, every machine adds to the damage releasing more emissions into an already fragile atmosphere. Calling this progress ignores the truth we’re all facing – the planet is warning us, and yet we keep choosing to look away.

On the front line against the Porto Central project, the grassroots group REDI gives voice to fishing families and riverside communities whose lives and traditions are at risk. FASE Espírito Santo stands with them, supporting local communities, defending their land and waters, and demanding accountability from those pushing destructive projects.

Marcos Pedlowski, a researcher and associate professor at the State University of Northern Rio de Janeiro (UENF), expresses deep concern about the potential impact of Porto Central on the small, fragile town of Presidente Kennedy. His worries are based in nearly two decades of research and firsthand experience living among those affected by the Açu Port, another large-scale project located less than 100 km from Porto Central:

Presidente Kennedy is a poor, quiet place, unprepared for a project of this size. When thousands of workers arrive, life here will change overnight, and not for the better. We’ll see more social tension, more prostitution, more alcohol and drugs. Violence will rise, and the community will be left to deal with the consequences.

He warns that these social risks are tied to deeper political realities:

We already live with corruption and heavy-handed policing in Espírito Santo. When you add a project like Porto Central to that mix, you’re setting the stage for even greater injustice.

For Pedlowski, what’s happening in Presidente Kennedy is part of a larger story, one he has seen unfold before along Brazil’s coast:

These are what I call sacrifice ports. The investors know the damage they’ll cause: the erosion, the pollution, the displacement of fishermen and quilombola families. But the profits speak louder. Behind all the promises, what’s really at play is the takeover of land and sea, with the state working hand in hand with corporate power.

A fossil fuel magnet

Some of Porto Central’s confirmed clients are hardly green. The company has signed contracts with Brazil’s state-owned oil and gas company, Petrobras (2021), Norwegian Equinor (2024), Chinese CNOOC (2024), and Spanish Repsol Sinopec (2025), to handle crude oil and derivatives.

José Maria Vieira de Novaes, Porto Central’s CEO, described oil as “one of the anchors of the project”, citing government forecasts of booming exports and limited existing infrastructure. He told Folha Business in 2022:

The existing terminals can’t absorb what’s coming.

While Brazil pledges to decarbonise, its newest mega-port is potentially built to accelerate fossil-fuel throughout.

Who profits?

At the heart of Porto Central is TPK Logística S.A., owned by the Polimix Organisation, a major Brazilian conglomerate in concrete, aggregates, and logistics. Polimix is controlled by Ronaldo Moreira Vieira, and José Maria Vieira de Novaes is one of TPK Logística’s partner.

According to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), Ronaldo Moreira Vieira is listed in the Panama Papers database. Being listed “active” in that database means the entity was operational at the time of the 2016 leak, evidence of involvement in offshore structuring. Though not proof of illegality, the revelation invites scrutiny over transparency and beneficial ownership.

A president with 13 companies

José Maria Vieira de Novaes, meanwhile, wears many hats. Corporate registries show his name linked to 13 companies, from Agropecuária Limão Ltda to Kennedy Energia Solar Ltda and Praia Kennedy Empreendimentos Ltda, collectively controlling over R$388m (approximately $72m) in share capital.

Several of these companies operate within the same region as the port. Some are active in real estate and energy, the very sectors poised to benefit from Porto Central’s rise. Such overlap could allow Novaes to benefit indirectly from Porto Central’s infrastructure expansion, a potential conflict of interest that blurs the line between public good and private gain.

Hazards and mitigation

Brazil’s environmental agency, Ibama, has already required Porto Central to conduct additional sediment and noise studies before advancing major phases of construction. While the company claims to operate under “international environmental standards”, local NGOs accuse it of pre-emptying full approval.

The list of some of the potential hazards reads like an environmental check-list from hell: destruction of marine habitats from dredging, disturbance to turtle nesting and marine mammal migration, erosion of beaches from altered sediment flow, pollution from oil spills, waste and sewage, noise and vibration from heavy machinery disturbing wildlife and residents, salinisation of groundwater, introduction of invasive species via ballast water, accident and spills during ship-to-ship transfer, destruction of mangroves, long-term erosion along the Presidente Kennedy coastline.

Porto Central vs Açu Port: a tale of two mega ports

Both Porto Central and Açu Port, located less than 100 km apart along Brazil’s southeast coast, share grand visions, deepwater and export terminals, and industrial zones promising jobs and growth.

Açu, launched in 2013 in São João da Barra, in Rio de Janeiro state, has matured into a functioning port and energy hub. Yet, academic research reveal deep scars: displacement of fishing families, salinisation of water tables, and unfulfilled social compensation. Research papers describe community disruption and environmental degradation as long term legacies of the project.

Carlos Freitas, an environmentalist with the NGO REDI, says the story repeating in Presidente Kennedy is painfully familiar. His group has been working with fishing families and the farmers in the MST (landless worker’s movement) settlements near Morro da Serrinha, where quarrying for Porto Central’s construction has already disrupted lives:

What happened at Açu Port is happening again here – the same promises, the same silence about the damage. They call it progress, but what we see is destruction disguised as development.

He explains that company meetings are called with only a few days’ notice, leaving little room for real participation. Meanwhile, explosions from the quarry scare off animals, cause livestock miscarriages, and shake the homes of farming families:

People are being misled with talk of jobs and growth, while explosions shake their land and animals flee. In the MST settlements, families are watching their crops and animals suffer. Porto Central isn’t bringing life to this region – it’s taking it away.

This illustrates a shared Brazilian dilemma, rapid industrialisation without governance or ecological safeguards.

Logistics

Beneath the promise of progress lies uncertainty. The project relies on unfinished national logistic links, including the EF-118 railway between the capital of Espírito Santo, Vitória, and Rio de Janeiro, EF-352 linking the states of Espírito Santo, Minas Gerais and Goiás, and highway upgrades on BR-101 and BR-262. Without them, Porto Central could become a bottleneck. The port’s promoters insist the state government’s commitment will guarantee completion, but Brazil’s infrastructure history is littered with stalled railways.

Add to that the climate challenge, as rising seas and stronger storms could test the port’s defences before it’s even operational.

Ambition and accountability

Porto Central sums up Brazil’s eternal paradox: vast potential, fragile governance.

It could, in theory, anchor Brazil’s future in global trade. Yet, without transparency, oversight and rigorous socio-environmental stewardship, it risks becoming another cautionary tale, of profit for a few and pollution for many, a crossroads between development and destruction.

With ownership structures stretching into offshore secrecy jurisdictions, and leadership linked to a constellation of private companies, accountability remains elusive.

 Whether Porto Central becomes Brazil’s Rotterdam, or its next development scandal, will depend less on engineering than on ethics.

For many locals, the question isn’t whether Porto Central will rise, but who it’ll serve once it does.

Porto Central did not respond to a request for comment.

Featured image: Governo do Espírito Santo.