"Nature Food" China-Pakistan cooperation quantifies the beneficial effects of double-season planting for the first time

From 1980 to 2016, Brazil's grain production increased more than four times, and Brazil has become the world's largest soybean exporter and the second largest corn exporter

Cultivated land expansion has always been regarded as one of the driving forces of Brazil’s agricultural production growth.

Gao contributed to the team’s work by examining the agricultural census-related data collected from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE).

These three regions cover 36% of Brazil's territory and accounted for 79% of national soybean production and 85% of national corn production in 2016

The increase in food production in the Midwest can be attributed to the expansion of arable land and double cropping

From 2003 to 2016, the contribution rate of double-season planting in the Midwest increased from 19% to 33%

“The central and western regions have experienced rapid farmland expansion in the past few decades.

The researchers also found that the biggest driving force behind the rapid increase in food production is the rising demand for corn and soybean exports from Brazil worldwide

It is important to understand that double-season planting has helped Brazil, a country that plays a key role in the global food supply chain, to increase agricultural productivity while restricting the agricultural use of natural land, which may help offset some of the negative environment that may be caused by the expansion of cultivated land.

From 2003 to 2016, Brazil's double-season planting offset the corn production area of ​​about 76.

Although not every farming country can benefit from or can use double-season planting to grow food, this article emphasizes that for other pan-tropical food-growing countries, double-season planting can improve without expanding the natural landscape arable land.

Original Search: Jialu Xu, Jing Gao, Henrique Vinicius de Holanda, Luis F.