BRAZILIAN President Luiz Inacio “Lula” da Silva has announced a 27 per cent rise in the “harvest plan” budget for sustainable agriculture, with 364 billion reals (£60bn) earmarked for the project.

His government intends to recover 30 million hectares of degraded farmland rather than rely on deforestation to increase agricultural output. It has expressed concern not just at Amazon deforestation but at the clearing of the Cerrado in Brazil’s mid-west, the world’s most species-rich savannah. 

The Harvest Plan is part of a package of measures on agricultural sustainability including the restoration of the National Food Council, which subsidises small-scale farming and the delivery of its produce across the country.