Food & Climate
A new study about climate change challenges food security in the Amazon, has starting point of the work was the observation, in previous studies, of alarming scenarios for about 200 plant species consumed by native peoples, including strategic foods such as Brazil nuts, the country which will host COP30 this year.
Climate change is causing profound transformations in the Amazon, affecting biodiversity, altering rainfall patterns, and directly impacting the lives of populations that depend on the forest to survive.
The new study indicates that facing this reality requires not only mitigation but also adaptation, with measures ranging from large-scale forest restoration to river protection, essential both for agricultural production and for transportation in the region.
These recommendations are compiled in the policy brief “Climate Adaptation Strategies Aimed at the Well-Being of Amazonian Populations,” released in August 2025. The document was prepared by researchers from the Vale Institute of Technology for Sustainable Development (ITV), in partnership with institutions such as the University Of São Paulo (USP) and the National Institute for Space Research (INPE).
The publication’s coordinator, researcher Tereza Cristina Giannini, from ITV, highlights that the initiative brings together experts from different fields of bioeconomy and the sustainability of food chains in the Amazon, according to a report seen by “Food & Climate” platform.
Plants of the future
The publication points to future paths already being explored by the research team, such as the creation of a booklet on “plants of the future”, little-known species that are potentially more resistant to the region’s new climate.
Another focus will be the analysis of the effects of the climate crisis on agricultural pollinators, vital for the production of foods such as cocoa, açaí, and Brazil nuts.
Studies are also underway on the food vulnerability of Indigenous peoples, aiming to map the area’s most susceptible to food insecurity, and genetic mapping work on cocoa, to identify adaptive traits that may contribute both to genetic improvements and to the definition of priority conservation areas.
“Many of the plants consumed regionally as food come from the forest. It is known that the original peoples who have inhabited the Amazon for thousands of years have been managing the forest and prioritizing useful plants, whether for food, medicinal uses, or as a source of wood and fiber,” recalls the scientist.
For Giannini, the main contribution of the document was to synthesize, in a single publication, the knowledge accumulated by different lines of research on the impact of climate change on the diet of Amazonian populations.
Brazil nuts for the recovery of degraded soils
Embrapa research on Brazil nuts (Bertholletia excelsa) plantations indicates that the species is efficient for the recovery of degraded soils in areas where the forest has been removed.
This is a very promising result to recompose forests in the Amazon biome, where there are currently over 5 million hectares of soils that need to be restored. Another advantage observed is that Brazil nut trees can produce for over 40 years with little or no nutrient input. In addition to contributing to conservation, the cultivation can help to create jobs and income for forest peoples, as they generate environmental services.
The studies are taking place in Brazil nut tree groves cultivated in areas that had previously been degraded pastures in Amazonas state “The growth capacity Brazil nut trees have demonstrated proves that it has a physiological strategy that is fully adapted to those types of soils,” asserts the Embrapa Western Amazon researcher Roberval Lima, who conducts forestry studies with the species.
The use of Brazil nut trees in the recovery of degraded areas is further backed by studies on emissions from the soil, a process also called soil respiration, which consists in a set of biochemical phenomena involving temperature, humidity, nutrients and oxygen levels that is influenced by natural factors and human action. The studies compared the soil respiration capacity and gas emissions in different ecosystems, according to the land use types in the biome.
One of the conclusions is that Brazil nut plantations show levels of soil quality improvement that reveal a tendency to restore its chemical and physical characteristics and the presence of microorganisms.
According to the researcher, soils in Brazil nut plantations have 50% higher quality than degraded pasture areas.
They held studies comparing the flow of gases from the soil in a natural forest ecosystem, in a post-forest one (after the forest was cleared) and in forestry cultivations such as the Brazil nut groves. “The results indicate that the soil under the planted Brazil nut trees recovers in a way that tends to be close to that of a natural forest,” he says.