No country on Earth puts more breakfasts on kitchen tables than Brazil.
The farms that dot the vast plains and highlands that rise above the Atlantic coast produce four-fifths of the world’s orange juice exports, half of its sugar exports, a third of coffee exports and a third of the soy and corn used to feed egg-laying hens and other livestock.
So when the region’s crops were scorched and then frozen this year by a devastating one-two punch fueled by climate change — the worst drought in a century followed by an unprecedented Antarctic front that repeatedly coated the land in thick frost — global commodity markets shook.
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