By Ana Mano
SAO PAULO, Nov 9 (Reuters) – Brazilian agtech company ConnectFarm has been selected by China’s Syngenta to participate in a project aimed at recovering at least 1 million hectares of degraded pasture land in Brazil over five years, the company said in a statement on Tuesday.
ConnectFarm’s role in the project, announced by Syngenta and The Nature Conservancy in 2019, will be to assist farmers as they plant a more resistant soybean seed variety that can thrive in degraded areas, the statement said.
Also as part of the initiative, Syngenta is promoting partnerships with banks to help farmers in Brazil, the world’s largest exporter of many agricultural commodities, to access financing for cultivating soy in such areas, ConnectFarm said.
The initiative comes as a response to the growth of degraded pasture land in Brazil, which accelerated over the years as ranchers cleared land in the rain forest and many other parts of the country to raise cattle for export.
Syngenta, an agrichemicals company, confirmed engaging ConnectFarm in the project, which is broadly aimed at “improving soil health, resource efficiency and habitat protection in major agricultural regions worldwide.”
Brazil’s National Agricultural Census estimates 12 million hectares of degraded pastures in the country that can be recovered and used to grow crops, 8 million of which are in the Brazilian Cerrado biome alone, ConnectFarm said.
“By converting degraded pasture land into areas for the cultivation of soy and other grains, we collaborate with sustainable production,” ConnectFarm Chief Executive Rodrigo Franco Dias said in the statement.
(Reporting by Ana Mano; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)
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