🌾 Soy can't buy me love

Follow the cargo out of Brazil's Center-West region and you would conclude that Brazil's grain frontier belongs to Beijing. In 2022, China absorbed 80% of the region's soybean exports — USD 11.7 billion — and 86% of its beef, worth over USD 4 billion. The US, the second-largest beef buyer, took USD 500 million.

The people who live there do not appear to have gotten the memo.

Few places in Brazil are more exposed to the outside world. The Center-West and North together account for roughly 16% of GDP and 26% of exports. The Center-West alone produces 48% of the country's grains and oilseeds and the two regions combine for 58% of the national cattle herd...

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