Brazilian Farmers Protest

More than 20,000 Brazilian farmers marched in the capital Brasilia, parking tractors outside the presidential palace as they seek government aid to cope with drought damage, mounting debt and declining incomes. Farm industry leaders and four governors, including Blairo Maggi, the governor of Mato Grosso state and the world’s biggest soy grower, are pushing for renegotiation of $7.2 billion in debt and increased spending on disease control. Farmers in Brazil, the world’s biggest sugar, coffee and orange juice producer and the second largest grower of soybeans, lost 13 percent of their expected crop in the first half of this year as a drought struck the country’s south.