Dr. Mike Walden, North Carolina Cooperative Extension economist in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at N.C. State University, responds:

"It's one of our neighbors to the south named Brazil. Now, Brazil is a big, big country in terms of land area - in fact, almost as big as the U.S. just in terms of geographics. But it's also now a big country in terms of people. It's approaching 200 million people. In comparison, the U.S. has 300 million people. And it's also growing at a very rapid pace economically. In fact, its growth rate has averaged in the last couple of years 5 percent a year. In contrast, the U.S. economy right now is growing at about .5 percent a year. And then I think a recent change or really discovery has really brought attention to Brazil, and that is that a major new reserve of oil has been discovered off the coast of Brazil. And many say this is going to be a major production facility for oil that not immediately, but down the years, down the road, is going to push Brazil into being one of the major oil producers in the world. And that also will contribute to it being an economic superpower."