While Indigenous peoples comprise just 6% of the global population, they manage or have tenure rights over at least 38 million km2 in some 87 countries. In many places Indigenous…
Cacao (Theobroma cacao) is native to the Amazon rainforest and has been cultivated and consumed throughout the Americas since before Columbus. Cacao can be broadly segregated into to contrasting types…
There are two major cultivated species of coffee: arabica (Coffea arabica) and robusta (Coffea canephora), each with a multitude of varieties adapted to a broad range of ecological conditions. Arabica…
Coffee and cacao have much in common. Both are descended from understory trees adapted to the low-light conditions of the forest floor. Each have multiple cultivated varieties that differ with…
The spikes in commodity prices in the first decade of the twenty-first century coincided with a global boom in biofuels. The interest in biofuels was motivated allegedly by a concern…
Palm oil is different from most agricultural commodities because the raw harvested product, fresh fruit bunches, must be processed within 48 hours or it will spoil. This fact dictates that…
Colombia Colombia is Latin America’s largest producer of palm oil, with nearly 450,000 hectares (1.1 million acres) of oil palm plantations in 2020, with another 100,000 immature plantings that will…
La Guajira, COLOMBIA — On Oct. 9, Colombia’s first wind farm, Jepírachi, officially reached its end of life after running for almost two decades in Uribia, in the northeastern region…
Oil palm is highly suited to cultivation in the ecological and climatic conditions of the tropics and its cultivation in South America has expanded steadily over the last three decades.…
The cultivation of soy and maize has brought additional benefits to the farm economy in Mato Grosso because it has increased the supply and affordability of feed rations for livestock…
JAKARTA — Indonesian environmental activist Gita Syahrani, who has worked for years to push local governments to adopt sustainable economic policies, has been named a recipient of this year’s multimillion-dollar…
The soy/maize supply chain is dependent on the existence of privately owned logistical facilities that are essential for receiving, drying and storing soy and feed grains post-harvest. Without silos, the…
Because soybeans are annuals, soybean prices can vary sharply over relatively short periods of time. Farmers can choose to expand soy cultivation when prices are ‘good’, which eventually leads to…
The construction industry, with its intensive use of cement, is a climate killer. But an innovator in Mexico has found one solution: combining traditional adobe construction in a state-of-the art solar-powered public building.
The most important production system in the Pan Amazon when measured by GDP is the cultivation of annual crops: particularly soy, but also maize, rice, sorghum, wheat and cotton. In…
Beef production technology in all other Amazonian regions lags Brazil except for Bolivia, which has largely adopted the Brazilian approach to beef production. Bolivian producers can be classified into two…
Brazil is both a massive producer and consumer of beef. Domestic consumption has expanded steadily year on year with slight variations linked to periodic recessions, but most of the recent…
Packing plants are important to producers because the construction of a modern facility will stimulate the growth and diversification of the livestock sector. Modern packing plants must be located on…
The single largest cause of deforestation in the Pan Amazon is the clearing of forest to establish cultivated pasture to produce beef cattle. By some estimates, as much as eighty…
Highway infrastructure initiates the deforestation process, but it is almost always accompanied by some sort of agricultural activity. Depending upon circumstances, deforestation can proceed rapidly or slowly, lead to large…
Tanzania’s Eastern Arc Mountains, home to nearly 5,000 different plant species and dozens of amphibians unique to each isolated massif, provide the world with ecosystem services worth more than $8…
The macroeconomic hypothesis that infrastructure investments stimulate economic growth assumes that these physical assets overcome a logistical or systemic constraint on production. In practice, this requires for individual projects to…
The increasing presence of Chinese companies in South America has become an issue of concern among social and political analysts. Security specialists argue they are a geopolitical threat to the…
A handful of pioneering Amazonian chocolatiers are promoting keeping the rainforest standing by taking advantage of two forest products: cacao and cupuaçu.
Rechargeable batteries have an important role to play in the fight against climate change, especially when it comes to lowering greenhouse gas emissions through the transition to electric vehicles. It’s…
The concessionaire system in Peru is managed by the Organismo Supervisor de la Inversión en Infraestructura de Transporte de Uso Público (OSITRAN), which oversees investments in transportation infrastructure, while the…
In spite of the ongoing build-out of infrastructure in Latin America, investment remains well below what most economists think the region needs to spur economic growth and reduce poverty. This…
With an area covering 125.76 million hectares, Indonesia's forests, which are home to 17% of the global wildlife population, constitute the world's third largest rainforest ecosystem and hold the key…
The challenges to developing waterways have focused investor’s attention on railroads. In 2020, the Amazon Hub of the IIRSA portfolio included eight rail projects, which were either completed (2), under…
The main stem of the Amazon River has provided access to ocean-going cargo ships for centuries, including modern container ships that service the manufacturing sector in Manaus and ore-carriers that…
