From risk to resilience: Lessons for business from an emerging agroforestry model in Brazil

For most companies with agricultural supply chains, land use sits in an uncomfortable corner of sustainability strategy. It is often treated as a reputational risk, a compliance task, or a distant emissions problem. The result over the years could be summed up as a slew of pilots, pledges, and projects that rarely touch the underlying economics of how agricultural commodities are actually produced.

This approach is becoming increasingly risky. As climate impacts intensify and due-diligence requirements tighten, land-use risk will show up as supply disruption, price volatility, community conflict, and regulatory exposure.

But one emerging model in Brazil offers a promising solution.

In a country where land use accounts for the majority of emissions, and where decades of deforestation have left vast areas of degraded, unproductive farmland, a new generation  of business is showing that restoring landscapes can also restore livelihoods and supply chains. This is not charity, nor an offset. It's a climate transition that makes business sense.

It offers a simple idea with big implications: if food systems are redesigned to work with and not against nature, treating producers as partners rather than inputs, then forests and farmers can reinforce each other rather than compete.

A model worth paying attention to

Belterra, a Brazilian agroforestry startup founded in 2019, offers a clear example of what this looks like in practice.

Rather than acquiring land or imposing new production models, Belterra works through structured partnerships with farmers and landowners. Farmers retain ownership of their land. Agroforestry systems are co-designed with them. Capital, seedlings, technical support, and market access are provided upfront. Revenues are shared in proportion to investment and labour.

This structure matters. This is not an ideological commitment to “regeneration” in the abstract. It is a deliberate attempt to solve three practical problems at once:

1. How to make agroforestry economically viable in the early years, when trees and crops are still maturing and cash flow is tight.
2. How to ensure that farmers have a real stake in the transition, rather than bearing the risk while others capture the upside.
3. How to connect restored land to reliable markets at scale.

Belterra addresses these constraints through a mix of revenue-sharing, land leasing, blended finance, and long-term offtake agreements. When partnering with farmers, Belterra uses a twin track approach. In one track, the company leases degraded pasture from landowners, restores it into a productive agroforest, and returns it after a fixed period. In another, it partners directly with smallholders who co-invest the upfront costs in exchange for a share of future revenues. In all cases, land remains in local hands.

This is the part corporate practitioners should study closely. The innovation is not the crops. Agroforestry has existed for millennia. The innovation lies in how risk, reward, and agency are distributed.

A model like Belterra’s matters not because it is unique, but because it combines a set of conditions that are scalable and replicable in other tropical regions: degraded land with low productivity; crops suited to shade and diversity; buyers willing to commit to long-term procurement; and patient and blended capital to bridge the early years of establishment. Where these conditions exist, the model is highly promising.

Why agroforestry works differently

Agroforestry replaces monoculture with diversity. Trees and food crops are layered together to mimic natural ecosystems. Shade protects soil moisture. Nitrogen-fixing plants replenish fertility. Different crops mature at different times, creating year-round production rather than a single, vulnerable harvest window.

The business implications are significant.

Yields become more stable over time. Income is diversified across products. Farms are less vulnerable to droughts, pests, and price shocks. In Brazil, Belterra's agroforestry systems are generating substantially higher and more stable net income over time than degraded cattle pasture or monocropped systems, driven by multiple revenue streams, lower input dependency, and year-round harvests. They also sequester large amounts of carbon while restoring soils and biodiversity.

But perhaps the most under-appreciated benefit is social stability.

When farmers can earn a dignified living from the land they already have, pressure to clear new forest declines. When income arrives in year one or two rather than year five or eight, people adopt the practice. When knowledge is shared peer to peer, adoption accelerates. In Belterra’s projects, early adopters often become trainers (“multipliers”) for neighbouring farms - spreading skills and confidence well beyond the original plot.

For companies dependent on agricultural inputs, this matters. Stable livelihoods reduce conflict risk. Resilient crop systems reduce supply volatility. Long-term partnerships reduce exposure to sudden regulatory or reputational shocks linked to deforestation or labour abuse.

This is also where human rights and business resilience converge. 

Models that respect land rights, share value fairly, and give producers real agency are more durable over time because they are less likely to trigger grievances, disputes, or project failure. They are also more aligned with emerging human rights due-diligence expectations.

This is beyond traditional sustainability approaches as we know it. It is a shift in how value is created and shared.

What corporates are doing differently

Several large companies are already engaging with this model.

Cargill is financing and purchasing cacao grown in agroforestry systems in Brazil, linking reliable demand with support for landscape restoration. Natura has embedded agroforestry into its sourcing strategy, using what it calls carbon insetting to reduce emissions within its own value chain while strengthening supplier resilience. E-commerce giant Amazon is funding large-scale agroforestry projects linked to high-integrity carbon standards, with farmers organised into associations that retain control over land and production decisions.

The common thread is not carbon accounting. It is procurement design.

These companies are not simply paying for trees to be planted. They are committing to buy what the land produces and support a new model for that production. That commitment changes the economics of restoration. It provides liquidity in the early years. It signals demand for diversified, regenerative commodities. It builds farmer agency into the system. It aligns climate and social goals with core business functions.

There are risks to be managed. 

Concerns about land rights, community consent, and benefit sharing are central, and carbon markets have a chequered history. What this model demonstrates is that governance choices matter. Where farmers retain ownership, where contracts are transparent, and where carbon revenue is treated as a supplement rather than the main prize, these risks can be mitigated.

For business, the lesson is straightforward. 

If climate action in land use is driven primarily by distant net-zero targets, it will struggle to stick. If it is anchored in supply security and shared value, it has a real chance to take off.

The constraints that still hold the system back

Despite its promise, agroforestry remains far from mainstream. As with most just transition pathways, the challenge is primarily political rather than technical.

Public policy still overwhelmingly favours monoculture agriculture. Subsidies, credit systems, and technical support services are designed around single crops and short production cycles. In Brazil, billions flow each year to industrial cattle and soy operations, while regenerative systems receive a fraction of that support.

Land tenure insecurity compounds the problem. Many smallholders, Indigenous peoples, and Quilombola communities lack formal land titles, making long-term investment risky and limiting access to finance. All of this legal uncertainty serves as a significant barrier to scale.

Finance is another constraint. Agroforestry requires patience. Trees do not grow on quarterly timelines. Traditional agricultural loans are ill-suited to systems where returns build over several years. Blended finance can bridge this gap, but only if public and philanthropic capital is willing to absorb early risk - as was the case for Belterra.

Market infrastructure also lags behind. Global supply chains are optimised for uniform commodities, not diverse crops that are best for soil health and farmer stability. Until buyers commit at scale to sourcing from regenerative systems, farmers will continue to face barriers in selling what they grow.

The risk for companies is this deepens lock-in to our existing agricultural models. Every year of continued investment in fragile, monoculture-based supply chains makes the eventual food systems transition harder, more expensive, and more disruptive.

What this means for corporate practitioners

Brazil’s experience offers at least five practical takeaways:

First, treat land use as productive infrastructure, not a distant emissions issue. The biggest gains come when restoration is linked to core sourcing decisions.

Second, focus on partnership structure. How contracts are designed, how risk is shared, and who controls land and knowledge will determine whether projects scale or stall.

Third, use procurement power deliberately. Long-term offtake agreements can do more to enable transition than one-off grants or pilot funding.

Fourth, engage on policy and enabling environments. Without changes to subsidies, credit, and land tenure frameworks, regenerative models will remain niche.

Most importantly, keep farmers at the centre. Not as beneficiaries, but as partners with agency, expertise, and influence. From a human rights perspective, this is essential. From a business perspective, it is simply pragmatic.

A transformational transition

Agroforestry cannot replace all forms of agriculture. It is not a universal solution. But in tropical regions where this farming method is most viable, and where deforestation, degraded land, and rural poverty intersect, it offers one of the clearest pathways to align climate action with economic development. A just transition.

Most smallholder and family farmers are already in survival mode. What Brazil shows is that a just transition in agriculture is not about asking farmers to sacrifice for the planet. It is about building systems where restoring land and improving livelihoods is the most rational choice available.

What this model ultimately demonstrates is that restoring ecosystems, reinforcing resilient livelihoods, and securing sustainable supply chains are economically sound for both small farmers and big business. More than that, in today's economy and changing climate, these integrated approaches are business-critical.

For deeper insights, read IHRB’s latest narrative feature: A just agricultural transition taking root in Brazil - part of the JUST Stories project