Welcome To Mato Grosso, The Giant Swath Of Land That's Feeding The Entire World
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Here's where Mato Grosso is located.<br />
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By <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/" target="_blank">Business Insider</a></p>
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Mato Grosso is comprised four large clusters of farms.</p>
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By <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/" target="_blank">Business Insider</a></p>
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This is the Mato Grosso Institute of Agricultural Economics' version of that map.</p>
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By <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/" target="_blank">Business Insider</a></p>
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Photo: <a href="http://imea.com.br/upload/pdf/arquivos/2012_09_13_Apresentacao_MT.pdf" target="_blank">IMEA</a></p>
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Brazil is top 5 worldwide for most major crops, and is now the fourth-largest grains producer in the world.</p>
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By <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/" target="_blank">Business Insider</a></p>
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Photo: <a href="http://imea.com.br/upload/pdf/arquivos/2012_09_13_Apresentacao_MT.pdf" target="_blank">IMEA</a></p>
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Mato Grosso is usually No. 1 within Brazil for each of those categories.</p>
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By <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/" target="_blank">Business Insider</a></p>
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Photo: <a href="http://imea.com.br/upload/pdf/arquivos/2012_09_13_Apresentacao_MT.pdf" target="_blank">IMEA</a></p>
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The satellite view of the patchwork of crops is amazing.</p>
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By <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/" target="_blank">Business Insider</a></p>
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Many farms — like this one near the town of Ipiranga do Norte — are carved straight out of the forest.</p>
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By <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/" target="_blank">Business Insider</a></p>
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Mato Grosso farmers have been major beneficiaries of Brazil's explosive growth in arable land — up 26 percent between 2001 and 2009.</p>
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By <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/" target="_blank">Business Insider</a></p>
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Photo: <a href="http://www.iisd.org/tkn/pdf/food_security_brazil.pdf" target="_blank">IISD</a></p>
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The one farmer in the middle of this plot in the Vera region controls about 8,300 acres.</p>
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By <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/" target="_blank">Business Insider</a></p>
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Brazil's agricultural growth has been led by the Embrapa, or Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation.</p>
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By <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/" target="_blank">Business Insider</a></p>
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Photo: <a href="http://www.embrapa.br/english" target="_blank">Embrapa</a></p>
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Embrapa is responsible for transforming the country's savannah region — at the center of which is Mato Grosso — into what the New York Times calls the country's "grain belt."</p>
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By: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/" target="_blank">Business Insider</a></p>
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Photo: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cerrado_ecoregion.jpg" target="_blank">Wikipedia</a></p>
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Source: <a href="http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9504E4DC133EF931A35753C1A9619C8B63&sec=&spon=">New York Times</a></p>
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The satellite views of Mato Grosso are spectacular. Here's some grazing livestock near a town called Sinop.</p>
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By <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/" target="_blank">Business Insider</a></p>
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And again, the spontaneous geometry is breathtaking.</p>
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By <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/" target="_blank">Business Insider</a></p>
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Photo: <a href="https://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ll=-12.117376,-55.355816&spn=0.102548,0.099735&t=h&z=13" target="_blank">Google Maps</a></p>
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The region's success has not been without controversy — deforestation has become a major concern.</p>
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By <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/" target="_blank">Business Insider</a></p>
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Photo: <a href="https://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ll=-12.137442,-55.443149&spn=0.006409,0.006233&t=h&z=17" target="_blank">Google Maps</a></p>
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The government is partially responsible. Brazil's farming growth has been subsidized by the government, to the tune of $64 billion, about six percent of the country's budget.</p>
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By <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/" target="_blank">Business Insider</a></p>
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Photo: <a href="https://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ll=-12.09713,-55.280457&spn=0.012819,0.012467&t=h&z=16" target="_blank">Google Maps</a></p>
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But multinationals are also a major presence. Here's a Cargill plant in the southern part of the state.</p>
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By <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/" target="_blank">Business Insider</a></p>
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And just up the road is a mega ag plant with 20 processing facilities.</p>
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By <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/" target="_blank">Business Insider</a></p>
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Who's eating all of Mato Grosso's food? For meat, the Middle East.</p>
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By <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/" target="_blank">Business Insider</a></p>
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Photo: <a href="http://imea.com.br/upload/pdf/arquivos/2012_09_13_Apresentacao_MT.pdf" target="_blank">IMEA</a></p>
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China buys 52 percent of Mato Grosso's soybean exports.</p>
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By <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/" target="_blank">Business Insider</a></p>
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Photo: <a href="http://imea.com.br/upload/pdf/arquivos/2012_09_13_Apresentacao_MT.pdf" target="_blank">IMEA</a></p>
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Mato Grosso is landlocked and must rely on this single route to reach the port of Sao Paolo.</p>
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By <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/" target="_blank">Business Insider</a></p>
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But that has produced another milestone: Sao Paolo is now the largest port in Latin America.</p>
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By <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/" target="_blank">Business Insider</a></p>
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Sao Paolo port handles 780,000 tons of goods a day.</p>
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By <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/" target="_blank">Business Insider</a></p>
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