Brazil: The new breadbasket

Brazil, long a leading exporter of sugar, citrus and coffee, is emerging as the world's leading low-cost producer of major farm commodities once hardly associated with the tropics. Now, it is threatening the United States' standing as the world's farming superpower, a development that could have profound consequences for rural America.

Brazil has the world's largest commercial cattle herd and is closing the gap with the United States in corn production. But a more dramatic milestone has all of farm country buzzing: Brazil's exports of soybeans -- the world's most important source of vegetable protein -- have now surpassed those of the United States.