SLC Agricola

SLC Agricola has bought its second farm in Brazil's Piaui state in less than two months, expanding into a relatively undeveloped area where land prices are a fraction of those in more popular regions.

While Brazil touts its efforts to slow destruction of the Amazon, another biodiverse region of the country is being cleared for large-scale farming. But unlike the heralded rainforest it borders, the loss of the cerrado and its rich tropical savanna so far has failed to attract much notice.

SLC, whose crops cover 223,000 hectares, will sell a 49 percent slice of the new company, Land Co., to local or foreign investors that may include sovereign and pension funds