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Source: https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-...-trader-lender
In the Brazilian Amazon, China is buyer, trader, lender, builder – to potentially devastating effect
Brazil
With Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro on a ‘mission from God’ to settle the Amazon and carve it up for economic gain, Beijing’s growing reliance on the country for its soybean supply spells disaster for the region’s peoples and its rainforests.
Melissa Chan and Heriberto Ara?jo
Published: 5:00am, 14 Jun, 2020
Updated: 5:46am, 14 Jun, 2020
In 1928, Henry Ford decided he would develop the Amazon. The American industrialist needed a cheaper and more reliable source of rubber for the millions of tyres produced by his namesake Ford Motor Company near Detroit, and the South American jungle’s trees held promise.
Ford had long believed he manu?factured more than cars. He believed his factories built character, that they civilised the common man. He had tried to launch a project to carry out this vision in Alabama, but faced opposition.
He soon dis?patched American managers who, together with local labourers, cleared land along a tributary of the Amazon River some 700km inland from the Atlantic coast. The site they proposed would support as many as 10,000 workers. Construction started, and Fordl?ndia was born.
The venture was a disaster. The rubber tree, though native to Brazil, refused to flourish in Fordl?ndia. The remote location made export to the United States difficult. People died from yellow fever. They died of malaria. More than once, jaguars ate employees’ children...
In the Brazilian Amazon, China is buyer, trader, lender, builder – to potentially devastating effect
Brazil
With Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro on a ‘mission from God’ to settle the Amazon and carve it up for economic gain, Beijing’s growing reliance on the country for its soybean supply spells disaster for the region’s peoples and its rainforests.
Melissa Chan and Heriberto Ara?jo
Published: 5:00am, 14 Jun, 2020
Updated: 5:46am, 14 Jun, 2020
In 1928, Henry Ford decided he would develop the Amazon. The American industrialist needed a cheaper and more reliable source of rubber for the millions of tyres produced by his namesake Ford Motor Company near Detroit, and the South American jungle’s trees held promise.
Ford had long believed he manu?factured more than cars. He believed his factories built character, that they civilised the common man. He had tried to launch a project to carry out this vision in Alabama, but faced opposition.
He soon dis?patched American managers who, together with local labourers, cleared land along a tributary of the Amazon River some 700km inland from the Atlantic coast. The site they proposed would support as many as 10,000 workers. Construction started, and Fordl?ndia was born.
The venture was a disaster. The rubber tree, though native to Brazil, refused to flourish in Fordl?ndia. The remote location made export to the United States difficult. People died from yellow fever. They died of malaria. More than once, jaguars ate employees’ children...