Brazil and China have the opportunity to use their powerful trade alliance to ensure future food security and economic stability by curbing deforestation and reducing climate change, according to a new report by Trase.
By André Vasconcelos
The bilateral trade relationship between Brazil, as the world’s largest agricultural exporter, and China, as its largest agricultural importer, is unparalleled. With a value of nearly $47 billion per year, this flow – dominated by soybeans and beef – is 40% larger than the next most significant trade relationship between the US and China. More than half of Brazil’s agricultural exports go to China, while about a third of China’s agricultural imports come from Brazil.
Given the scale of Brazil and China’s agricultural trading relationship, joint action has the potential to benefit the sustainability of commodity trade globally, creating a phenomenon that Trase calls a ‘Beijing-Brasília effect’ in its new report. Challenges to multilateralism and shifting political priorities in Europe, the US, and other markets are weakening ambition on climate and biodiversity. In this context, South-South cooperation has emerged as a promising avenue for advancing global environmental governance. When it comes to sustainability of agricultural commodities trade, Brazil and China have the potential to set the direction.
Both countries show growing ambition on the world stage as demonstrated by Brazil’s presidency of COP30 climate summit in 2025 and China’s presidency of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework in 2022. Brazil and China are global leaders in the transition to a low-carbon economy. Brazil generates almost all of its electricity from renewable sources and is a global leader in biofuel production. China produces the majority of the world’s solar panels and wind turbines, and is the largest producer of electric vehicles. These advances have driven down the costs of low-carbon technologies, accelerating their deployment worldwide.
The report highlights mounting evidence of the threat that deforestation, climate change and biodiversity loss pose to Brazil and China’s food security and economic stability. For instance, in 2020, a drought in southern Brazil caused a reduction of 46% and 32% of soy and maize production in Rio Grande do Sul – one of the country’s top exporting states. Another drought in 2021–2022 affected the soy harvest in the Amazon, resulting in an estimated $13 billion loss and contributing to a 12% decline in Brazil’s agricultural GDP in early 2022.
Brazil and China have outsized potential to influence the sustainability of global agricultural supply chains and contribute to safeguarding food security for billions of people. Trase analysis finds that Brazil-China trade accounts for 25% of the deforestation risk associated with all international trade in agricultural commodities. For China’s imports specifically, Brazil accounts for 80% of the risk that commodities were sourced from recently deforested land, with Brazilian cattle products alone representing 61% of China’s total risk.
The task of reducing deforestation via global commodity supply chains can appear complex and intractable. Yet Trase analysis shows that deforestation is concentrated in a relatively small number of producing regions, making targeted and scalable action that drives systemic change achievable and impactful. While more than 1,500 Brazilian municipalities supply soy to China, just 73 account for 75% of the total deforestation risk.
The foundations for unlocking a Beijing-Brasília effect on sustainable commodity trade are already firmly in place. Fully capitalising on this opportunity requires a joint roadmap with five strategic priorities: knowledge exchange and innovation, unlocking finance, setting joint standards, tackling illegality and strengthening South-South cooperation.
Read the report here.
