Transforming Risk into Business Value: Insights from Brazil's Agroforestry Sector

For many companies with agricultural supply chains, land use occupies an uneasy space in sustainability strategies. It is often framed as a reputational risk, a compliance requirement, or a distant emissions issue rather than a core business concern. Over time, this has resulted in a proliferation of pilots, pledges, and projects that rarely address the underlying economics of how agricultural commodities are produced. This approach is becoming increasingly precarious. As climate impacts intensify and due-diligence expectations tighten, land-use risk is no longer abstract. It is already manifesting as supply disruptions, price volatility, community conflict, and growing regulatory exposure. Against this backdrop, an emerging agroforestry model in Brazil offers a compelling alternative. In a country where land use accounts for a significant share of emissions and decades of deforestation have left large areas of degraded, unproductive farmland, a new generation of businesses is demonstrating that restoring landscapes can also strengthen livelihoods and supply chains. This is neither charity nor a carbon offset exercise. It represents a climate transition that is grounded in commercial logic. At its core is a simple but powerful idea: when food systems are redesigned to work with nature rather than against it, and when producers are treated as partners rather than inputs, forests and farmers can reinforce one another instead of competing for land and resources. A clear illustration of this approach can be seen in Belterra, a Brazilian agroforestry startup founded in 2019. Instead of acquiring land or imposing top-down production models, Belterra works through structured partnerships with farmers and landowners. Farmers retain ownership of their land, while agroforestry systems are co-designed collaboratively. Belterra provides upfront capital, seedlings, technical assistance, and access to markets, and revenues are shared based on investment and labour contributions. This structure is critical because it is designed to solve practical challenges rather than promote regeneration as an abstract ideal. It addresses the difficulty of making agroforestry economically viable during the early years when trees and crops are still maturing and cash flow is limited. It ensures farmers have a genuine stake in the transition instead of bearing the risks while others capture the rewards. It also connects restored land to reliable markets at scale. Belterra achieves this through a combination of revenue-sharing arrangements, land leasing, blended finance, and long-term offtake agreements. In some cases, the company leases degraded pasture from landowners, restores it into a productive agroforest, and returns it after a fixed period. In others, it partners directly with smallholders who co-invest upfront costs in exchange for a share of future revenues. In every scenario, land remains under local ownership. For corporate practitioners, the significance of this model lies not in the crops themselves. Agroforestry has existed for centuries. The real innovation is in how risk, reward, and agency are distributed across the value chain. Agroforestry fundamentally differs from monoculture systems by replacing uniformity with diversity. Trees and food crops are layered to mimic natural ecosystems, improving soil moisture retention and fertility while spreading production across the year. Crops mature at different times, reducing reliance on a single harvest and lowering vulnerability to climate shocks. The business implications are substantial. Over time, yields become more stable and incomes more diversified. Farms are less exposed to droughts, pests, and price fluctuations. In Brazil, Belterra’s agroforestry systems are generating higher and more stable net income compared to degraded cattle pasture or monocropped land, driven by multiple revenue streams, lower input dependence, and continuous harvests. At the same time, these systems sequester carbon and restore soils and biodiversity. One of the most overlooked benefits, however, is social stability. When farmers can earn a dignified living from land they already own, the pressure to clear new forests diminishes. When income begins within the first few years rather than after a long wait, adoption increases. When knowledge spreads peer to peer, uptake accelerates. In Belterra’s projects, early adopters often become trainers for neighbouring farms, extending the impact well beyond the initial sites. For companies reliant on agricultural inputs, this stability is not incidental. Secure livelihoods reduce conflict risk, resilient farming systems lower supply volatility, and long-term partnerships reduce exposure to sudden regulatory or reputational shocks related to deforestation or labour practices. This is where business resilience and human rights considerations converge. Models that respect land rights, share value fairly, and give producers real agency tend to be more durable because they are less likely to generate grievances, disputes, or project failure. They also align more closely with emerging human-rights due-diligence requirements. Several large corporations are already engaging with this approach. Companies such as Cargill are financing and sourcing cacao from agroforestry systems in Brazil, linking reliable demand with landscape restoration. Natura has embedded agroforestry into its sourcing strategy through carbon insetting, reducing emissions within its own value chain while strengthening supplier resilience. Amazon has supported large-scale agroforestry initiatives tied to high-integrity carbon standards, with farmers organised into associations that retain control over land and production decisions. What unites these efforts is not carbon accounting but procurement design. These companies are not simply paying for trees to be planted; they are committing to purchase what the land produces and to support a different production model. This commitment alters the economics of restoration by providing early liquidity, signalling demand for diversified regenerative commodities, and embedding farmer agency into supply chains. There are, of course, risks to manage. Land rights, community consent, and benefit sharing are critical concerns, and carbon markets have a mixed track record. The Brazilian experience shows that governance choices matter. When farmers retain land ownership, contracts are transparent, and carbon revenue complements rather than dominates the business case, these risks can be reduced. Despite its potential, agroforestry remains far from mainstream. The barriers are largely political rather than technical. Public policies continue to favour monoculture agriculture, with subsidies, credit systems, and extension services designed around single crops and short production cycles. In Brazil, substantial public funds still support industrial cattle and soy operations, while regenerative systems receive limited backing. Insecure land tenure further constrains scale, particularly for smallholders, Indigenous communities, and Quilombola groups who lack formal titles and access to finance. Finance itself poses another challenge. Agroforestry requires patience, as returns accumulate over several years rather than quarters. Conventional agricultural loans are poorly suited to this reality. Blended finance can help bridge the gap, but only when public or philanthropic capital is willing to absorb early risk, as seen in Belterra’s case. Market infrastructure also lags, as global supply chains remain optimised for uniform commodities rather than the diverse outputs that regenerative systems produce. For businesses, the risk of inaction is continued lock-in to fragile agricultural models. Each year of investment in monoculture-based supply chains makes the eventual transition to resilient food systems more costly and disruptive. Brazil’s experience offers clear lessons for corporate practitioners. Treating land use as productive infrastructure rather than a distant emissions issue delivers the greatest returns. The design of partnerships, contracts, and risk-sharing arrangements determines whether initiatives scale or stall. Strategic use of procurement power through long-term offtake agreements can unlock transition more effectively than one-off grants. Engagement with policy and enabling environments is essential if regenerative models are to move beyond niche applications. Above all, farmers must remain central as partners with agency and expertise, not passive beneficiaries. Agroforestry is not a universal solution and cannot replace all forms of agriculture. However, in tropical regions where deforestation, degraded land, and rural poverty intersect, it offers one of the clearest pathways to align climate action with economic development. Brazil’s example shows that a just transition in agriculture does not require farmers to sacrifice for the planet. Instead, it involves building systems where restoring land and improving livelihoods is the most rational and profitable choice. Ultimately, this model demonstrates that ecosystem restoration, resilient livelihoods, and secure supply chains are not opposing goals. In today’s climate-constrained economy, they are increasingly inseparable and, for both small farmers and large corporations, business-critical.