At 11 years old I did not raise the question of how there could be hunger in the United States with so much food being raised. Now I am raising those questions, and the answers I am finding are deeply disturbing. Brazil has a population of approximately 17o million. Of that 170 million it is estimated that 32 million are undernourished. Brazil is among the top ten producers of beef.
Brazil is among the top three producers of sugar cane.
The answers are much more complicated than the simple observations that there is a lot of food being grown in Brazil, as in the United States and other countries. Part of this is because workers have very little motivation when they are miserably paid and often treated much like the machines they operate. I have seen are largely for export. At the very least, top quality items are exported. The quest for hard capital is the dominant force in Brazilian agriculture.