PRESIDENT Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva will unveil a plan at the UN’s upcoming COP28 climate summit to increase Brazil’s available agricultural lands by 60% without contributing to deforestation, his government announced yesterday.

The South American country will move to convert degraded grazing areas into farmland, the government announced a week ahead of the climate summit, set to kick off in Dubai on November 30.

“We carried out a study and counted nearly 160 million hectares of grazing areas. Of this total, around 40 million hectares are located in degraded grazing areas, but very suitable for crops,” Roberto Perosa, a Agriculture Ministry official, told a news conference.

“With a certain investment in the soil, this land can be converted into an arable area.“

Over the next 10 years the government plans to invest US$120 billion (RM561.5 billion) to expand the amount of farmland in the country, which has become a global agricultural powerhouse.

The move, if successful, would increase Brazil’s farmland from 65 million to 105 million hectares “without felling a single tree” – a huge concern in the Amazon nation.

Current private initiatives can convert about 1.5 million hectares of pasture land per year, Perosa said – a number the government wants to supercharge with backing from Brazilian financial institutions.

Lula, the country’s left-wing president, has made environmentalism and the defense of the Amazon rainforest key policy concerns.

At the same time, agriculture remains a massive cornerstone of the economy, with powerful political influence.

Deforestation of the Amazon – often from farmers, miners and cattle ranchers – increased notably under his far-right predecessor Jair Bolsonaro.

Lula has promised an end to illegal deforestation by 2030. – AFP, November 24, 2023.