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Paulo Bonato holds tropical wheat plants in his hands in Cristalina, Brazil
Photo: Rogério Vieira / DER SPIEGEL
Paulo Bonato's freckled hand gently strokes the tips of his ears.
The sun burns from the sky.
The earth in the central Brazilian savannah is as red as a rusty hull.
And yet a wheat field stretches across the plain, deep green and lush as if it were in the middle of Bavaria.
The wind drives through the dry leaves of the corn plants opposite, creating a steady whooshing sound like a tropical downpour.
But it rained here "for the last time on May 16 of this year," Bonato explains, almost three months ago.
Again and again Bonato takes a plant between his fingers, examines the unripe grains, checks whether his protégés have been infected by a disease or a fungus.
"I have to see them every day," he says, "I can feel how they're doing." Bonato, 62, a farmer and farm owner, holds the world record for cultivating tropical wheat – no one else produces crops as good as he does.
Bonato is protagonist one
Long-term revolution that is taking place around the Brazilian capital Brasilia - and is currently receiving a powerful boost.
The idea: Brazil, a country whose climatic zones and soil conditions actually only favor the cultivation of wheat in the temperate south, should become a major global producer.
President Jair Bolsonaro recently announced that the country will soon be able to provide for itself. "In ten years we will be exporting as much as we consume here."
»Car sufficiency« has been discussed at length in the media ever since.
Drought-related crop failures in traditional wheat-growing regions such as Canada
and shortages in the wake of Russia's war of aggression in Ukraine have put wheat at the center of global attention.
World market prices rose sharply, which now makes the cost-intensive cultivation of the grain in subtropical regions more attractive.
"Wheat is one of the most important sources of calories for mankind," says Celso Luiz Moretti, head of the Brazilian state agency for agricultural research Emprapa.
He hopes to make a long-term contribution to feeding the world with his innovations.
"If there are regions of the world where we can still expand food production, then it's the tropical and subtropical areas."
The wheat developed by Emprapa could also be cultivated in sub-Saharan Africa.
So is it the grain of the future?
Is cultivation in the subtropics
the solution to overcome existing hunger crises?
Or are the risks too high, as environmentalists fear?
Brazil, which imported beef from Europe and beans from Mexico in the 1970s, is now the fourth largest food exporter in the world.
Embrapa made this revolution possible in the first place: as early as the early 1970s, researchers began to adapt animals and plants from all possible regions of the world to the subtropical climate, i.e. to make them more resistant to heat and drought.
Over the decades, this has been achieved with just about everything, from the Afghan mountain goat to the Dutch dairy cow to corn, soy and of course: wheat.
So far, however, the country has been lagging behind when it comes to wheat cultivation.
Millions of tons still have to be imported every year - but that too is about to change.
And tropical wheat plays an important role in the plan, even if it currently accounts for only five percent of Brazil's total production, and the trend is rising.
Paulo Bonato, the world record maker, uses the BRS 264 wheat variety developed by Empraba on his 1200-hectare farm. But that alone is not enough to be successful here: The acidic, infertile soil has to be treated with a nutrient mixture.
The wheat also needs irrigation;
Bonato has created a kind of reservoir for this purpose, in which water is collected during the rainy season.
"The plant grows very quickly here, from seed to harvest it only takes around 120 days," explains Bonato, "in contrast to around 300 days in traditional winter wheat cultivation." This means that the grain can be planted somewhere between corn and soybeans – which in turn is good for the soil.
"We don't remove the plant remains, the organic material remains in the soil." This increases its resistance to diseases.
Bonato's secret recipe is a mixture of technology and love: he can follow his little plants in real time on his mobile phone: probes in each of his fields measure the soil moisture at different depths.
An app shows temperature and precipitation, calculates hourly updates.
But Bonato also has a personal relationship with his ears: "It's not that I talk to the plants," he says with an embarrassed grin, "but I just feel them.
Like a mother who can tell when her child is sad.«
As early as the mid-1980s, Embrapa was researching wheat for cultivation in tropical regions - initially with unpromising results.
The grain grew poorly, the gluten content was too low.
Agricultural engineer Julio Cesar Albrecht, 60, has been selecting wheat plants for the authorities since 1985, hand-pollinating those with promising traits such as drought or disease resistance, and creating new hybrids.
More than once he wanted to give up.
His research was called into question and funding was cut.
But then Albrecht thought of his childhood, of the beautiful wheat fields in front of his parents' house in southern Brazil, where he played hide and seek as a boy, of the dark wholemeal bread that he baked with his mother and ate with butter and honey, sort of his German ancestors.
Despite all the setbacks, Albrecht never lost his faith in tropical wheat.
On the first Tuesday in August he is sitting in a simple conference room at the local Emprapa branch in Planaltina and can hardly hide his joy.
Albrecht played a key role in the BRS 264 variant, which finally achieved the breakthrough.
Since then, tropical wheat production in Brazil has expanded rapidly.
In the meantime, says Albrecht, the grain from the savannah "can compete with the best in the world from Argentina and Canada".
It has a high protein content of 15 percent and is “excellent for making bread”.
Albrecht and his colleagues have also developed a variant that is less productive, but can even be grown without irrigation in subtropical regions.
"This is the best year for Brazilian wheat in half a century," says Albrecht.
The demand for wheat seed was so high in March and May that it ran out.
A record harvest of at least nine million tons of wheat is expected for this year - around three quarters of the company's own requirements.
»And we still have so much more potential.«
Less happy about the boom in tropical agriculture is Morgana Bruno, a biologist who teaches at the Catholic University of Brasilia.
"Of course, the production of food is important," she says, "but the savannah is a fragile ecosystem." In contrast to the rainforest, it is little protected, but it is still a primary vegetation.
Bruno teaches at the Catholic University of Brasilia.
She receives in the laboratory rooms.
The skin of an anteater is on the table, it is being prepared for teaching purposes, as are other animals of the savannah.
Bruno shows a stuffed owl, a capybara and a python lying in alcohol in a plastic box.
"The Brazilian savannah is home to various plant and animal species," says Bruno.
It is also extremely important for the water balance of the entire country.
In the subtropical heart of Brazil, Bruno explains, there are numerous rivers that flow in all directions.
"If we use too much water for cultivation here, then the rest of the country will dry up."
To make matters worse, the savannah belt is already suffering from a decrease in rainfall due to deforestation in the Amazon.
The Mapbiomas research community estimates that there will be 20 percent less rain in the savannah over the next few years – given the current level of deforestation, which, however, is progressing rapidly.
The temperature should therefore rise by four to five degrees.
Emprapa has calculated that tropical wheat could be grown on four million hectares of Brazilian savannah in the future.
It is planned that only areas already developed for agriculture will be used for this purpose
will.
But the researcher Bruno fears that it won't stop there.
Developments in Brazil argue against actually stopping agriculture: "Ultimately everything depends on demand." Bruno himself is vegan, she couldn't help it - after all, as an ecologist, she understands the connections.
"We shouldn't keep developing new plants that can then be cultivated in ever new places," she says, "but change our consumption."
"It's about finding a balance," says Embrapa boss Moretti.
The Brazilian savannah belt is 204 million hectares in size - albeit including areas that have already degenerated.
Four hectares are to be cultivated with wheat.
Moretti thinks that's manageable.
He speaks openly about climate change and positions himself explicitly against the deforestation of the Amazon, which he considers “stupid”.
But he believes in technical solutions and that adapting species and methods can help make agriculture not only more climate-resilient, but also more climate-friendly.
But even if this project should succeed, the question arises as to who will benefit from tropical agriculture.
Brazil is an impressive example of how increasing agricultural production does not mean an end to hunger.
The country lives with the paradox of being one of the largest exporters of food - while at the same time 33 million people are affected by food insecurity.
"My greatest hope is that local wheat will bring prices down," says ecologist Bruno, "and that everyone will be able to afford bread again."
Collaboration: Fernanda Bastos
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