China will continue to have a great appetite for Brazilian commodities despite the challenges of guaranteeing sustainability in meat and soybean production chains, according to Larissa Wachholz, head of the China Center at Brazil’s Ministry of Agriculture. The Asian country’s “absolute priority”, she says, is to ensure food security. 

Larissa Wachholz (Image: MAPA)

In this interview, first published in Diálogo Chino, Wachholz says China is becoming more demanding in terms of sanitary requirements, but that it should not impose sustainability clauses, such as enhanced traceability of meat produced in the Amazon. This, she says, would hinder the country’s access to items “absolutely necessary” for its population.

China drove record exports for Brazilian agribusiness in 2020, and for Wachholz, the launch of China’s new Five Year Plan means new opportunities.

Diálogo Chino: China’s 14th Five Year Plan (14 FYP) is the first since President Xi Jinping announced the goal of neutralising China’s carbon emissions by 2060. What conversations has the 14 FYP initiated within the Ministry of Agriculture about the opportunities Brazil can take advantage of? 

Larissa Wachholz: From the document we saw, there are three points that are very interesting for Brazilian agriculture and cattle ranching. First, it is very interesting to see a huge emphasis on fighting poverty and on rural revitalisation. We are faced with this same issue and we are working to advance in this area as well. In Brazil, the capacity to generate employment and increase income in cities that have developed from the economic growth of agribusiness is well known. We even see the improvement of the human development indexes (HDI) from agribusiness in certain regions of the country. 

Second, it is worth thinking about one of the premises of our low-carbon agriculture plan, the ABC Plan. Brazil has the opportunity to show the sustainability of its agriculture. We have the capacity to produce and increase the production of carbon-neutral products. Embrapa [Brazil’s agribusiness research institute] has already delivered a carbon-neutral meat protocol, which is already in use by the private sector. Today, consumers in some Brazilian cities already have the opportunity to go to the supermarket and buy carbon-neutral meat. The big challenge of carbon-neutral production is to achieve scale. And maybe we have an opportunity for collaboration between China and Brazil in the expansion of programmes that allow us to increase production.