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🇧🇷 Food, power and climate: reporting from Brazil
Investigating Corporate Power in
Food Systems and Climate in Brazil
Hello,
Welcome to the first edition of the international newsletter from O Joio e O Trigo, an independent Brazilian investigative journalism project focused on food systems and their intersection with the global climate emergency.
Our reporting investigates corporate power in the food and agribusiness sectors, with a particular focus on the ultra-processed food industry and its impacts on health, society, the environment, and the economy.
With this newsletter, we aim to bring Brazilian perspectives on the intersection of food systems and climate change to a global audience. Unlike much of the Global North, where greenhouse gas emissions are driven mainly by the energy sector, Brazil’s environmental challenges are deeply tied to agribusiness — especially its expansion into territories that should be protected.
From here, we will follow the money, examine the actors behind these dynamics, and report on the social and environmental consequences that often remain invisible beyond our borders.
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Brazilian cinema is thriving — and so are Brazilian food studies
Brazilian cinema has been enjoying a remarkable international moment. Between 2025 and 2026, two films stood out abroad: I’m Still Here, which won the Oscar for Best International Feature Film and a Golden Globe for Best Actress (Fernanda Torres), and The Secret Agent, which received four Oscar nominations and won Best Director and Best Actor (Wagner Moura) at Cannes.
Less widely known is that Brazilian research on food has had a similarly global impact.
One of the most influential ideas in contemporary food studies — the concept of ultra-processed foods — was developed in Brazil, at a public university. Created by researchers at the University of São Paulo, the NOVA classification shifted the focus from nutrients to food processing.
Since 2009, a growing body of research has linked ultra-processed foods to higher risks of premature death and chronic disease. Despite strong resistance from industry, NOVA has helped reshape global debates on food, health, and public policy.
Below, you’ll find reporting from O Joio e O Trigo that highlights the global impact of Brazilian research on food systems.
As Brazilian cinema captures global attention, Brazilian food studies deserve a spotlight of their own.
In context:
Brazilian rural caucus
Whenever our team speaks with journalists and researchers abroad, one feature of Brazilian politics consistently surprises them: the existence of the so-called rural caucus. Brazil’s Congress is heavily shaped by private interests, and this bloc — formally known as the Parliamentary Front for Agriculture — is among the most powerful, with a majority presence in both houses of Parliament.
That political strength mirrors the economic power of agribusiness. Beyond funding election campaigns, the sector sustains a strong cultural narrative that presents large-scale, export-oriented agriculture as indispensable to feeding the country. The claim is misleading, but effective: it helps secure the election of lawmakers who reliably advance the sector’s agenda.
The map below shows how soybeans — one of Brazil’s main agribusiness crops — have expanded across the country in recent decades.
In recent years, that agenda has translated into rollbacks of environmental protections, faster approval of pesticides, weakened land-tenure rules, and attacks on Indigenous land rights. Several of these measures are now being challenged in Brazil’s Supreme Court, underscoring how central the rural caucus has become to the country’s environmental and food-system debates.
Our reporting in English
Industry wants to redesign ultra-processed foods in order to continue profiting
Scientists receive funding from the sector to change texture and try to reduce the speed at which these products are consumed
Industry researchers challenge the presence of the creator of the concept of ultra-processed foods on a WHO committee
A petition claims that Carlos Monteiro, an international authority in the field of food and public health, cannot defend the conclusions of his own research
We also invite you to join our upcoming workshop, “Financial instruments, agribusiness and corporations: why and how to investigate them", a conversation designed for journalists, journalism students, and NGO members interested in uncovering the links between financial markets, agribusiness, and socio-environmental impacts. The session will take place on March 12, 2026, and registration is free until March 11.
We encourage you to sign up and be part of this transnational discussion on how to investigate the financialization of the so-called green economy.
Brazil enters March still echoing with Carnival. This year, our most internationally known celebration peaked in mid-month — but the festivities began long before and ended (did they really?) well after.
The most iconic image is Rio de Janeiro’s samba school parades — and they deserve every accolade. Each school turns the avenue into a kind of popular opera, with community-made costumes, powerful drum sections, and extraordinary dancers, in traditions deeply rooted in Afro-Brazilian culture.
But Carnival takes many forms. In Rio and São Paulo, massive street blocos flood the streets. In Salvador, revelers follow electric sound trucks to the rhythm of axé. In Recife and neighboring Olinda, frevo sets the pace.
Across the country, what remains constant is the spirit of a public, collective, often free celebration — days of shared catharsis. The links throughout this note offer a glimpse of the festivities. Or better yet: start planning your trip for Carnival 2027.
O Joio e O Trigo is an independent journalism project dedicated to investigating food systems, public health, and corporate power. From Brazil, we report on how research, policy, and industry shape what people eat — and how Brazilian science and journalism are influencing global debates on food and health.
We’d love to hear from you. If you’d like to talk, share feedback, or explore possible collaborations, feel free to get in touch.
Warm regards,
Thalita Pires
Editor at O Joio e O Trigo
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Copyright © 2026 O Joio e O Trigo. All rights reserved.
joio@ojoioeotrigo.com.br
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