Can cheap loans nudge milk and meat production back within the limits of the Amazon – and the Earth?

This year, Earth Overshoot Day falls on July 29, the earliest date yet, which tells us that we have prematurely exhausted Earth’s resources beyond what can be regenerated. To move back the date, we are working with farmers to test new practices to halt environmental degradation and make food production more sustainable.

Food and forest in Caquetá, Colombia

The Caquetá region is located in Colombia, on the edges of the Amazon. Its livestock production supplies the major population centers in the region with meat and milk, and the about 1.5 million heads of livestock underpin the incomes of some 14,000 families.

But over time, cattle farmers have expanded into areas that used to be native rainforest, resulting in land degradation and forest loss. Losing 68,300 hectares of natural forest in 2018, the region now has one of the country’s highest rates of deforestation….