Amazon
Amazon’s free fruit upsets local banana market
The 8,000 free bananas that Amazon hands out every day are disrupting the banana business for local vendors. “The brainchild of CEO Jeff Bezos, there are now two stands on its corporate campus staffed with ‘banistas’ led by ‘bananagers’ who give out bananas to anyone and everyone nearby, whether that’s one banana for breakfast or a dozen,” says Consumerist.com.
Deforestation gathers speed in Amazon basin
Nearly 2 million acres — 3,100 square miles — of forested land were cleared for agriculture in the Brazilian Amazon in the year ending July 2016, while Bolivia has cut down 865,000 acres, equal to 1,351 square miles, annually, says The New York Times. "A decade after the 'Save the Rainforest' movement forced changes that dramatically slowed deforestation across the Amazon basin, activity is roaring back in some of the biggest expanses of forests in the world," said the newspaper.
Q&A: How a soybean boom threatens the Amazon
This year, Brazil harvested around 100 million tons of soybeans from 33 million hectares (82 million acres), making it the second largest soybean producer in the world after the United States. These figures have grown steeply in recent years, partly due to demand from China, Brazil’s largest trading partner and the largest soybean importer in the world.