Brazil is a key example. The country is home to the world’s largest rainforest domain: approximately 1. 2 million square miles, a domain more than 16 times the length of Nebraska. The vast expanses of Amazon rainforest that, when switched to agriculture, release a massive amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, worsening climate change.
Increasing agricultural production is a national priority for Brazil, the world’s largest soybean exporter. Since the 1990s, agricultural encroachment has eroded giant slots of the country’s rainforest. From 2015 to 2019, the Amazon basin accounted for one-third of the land handed over to Brazilian Soy Expansion.
A four-year study recently published by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and its study partners in Brazil identifies a way forward that would allow Brazil to develop its agricultural sector while preserving the rainforest. The scientists’ recommendations are widely applicable to other emerging countries facing a similar challenge.
“In the current context of high cereal costs and disruptions in food sources, it is critical that primary crop-producing countries reconsider their possibilities to produce more on existing cropland,” the authors wrote in a paper published Oct. 10 in the journal Nature. Sustainability.
“Without the focus on intensifying agricultural production in the existing agricultural area, along with strong establishments and policies that prevent deforestation in frontier agricultural areas, it would be difficult for the last bastions of forests and biodiversity on the planet, while also being delicate for the economic conditions of the countries. “development aspirations”.
Since 2000, moratoriums and incentives have been used to curb deforestation in Brazil. However, the sharp rise in commodity costs and political pressure from the combined effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine have put the Amazon rainforest at greater risk. threat. If existing trends continue, Brazil will convert about 57 million acres to soybean production over the next 15 years, with about a quarter of the expansion on ecologically sensitive lands such as rainforest and savannah.
However, banning farmland expansion would cost Brazil around $447 billion in lost economic opportunities by 2035.
The study led by Patricio Grassini, Sunkist Professor Emeritus of Agronomy and Associate Professor in the Nebraska Department of Agronomy and Horticulture, shows how it would be possible for Brazil to increase agricultural production without converting more tropical forests and savannas into crops. With a conscientiously controlled strategy to increase production on the existing acreage, the country can increase its annual soybean production by 36% until 2035 and reduce greenhouse fuel emissions by 58% compared to existing trends.
Grassini and his co-authors describe a triple “intensification” that demands:
Brazil’s tropical and subtropical climates allow two crops to be grown on the same land during the development season in peak regions, Grassini said. In addition, “livestock production is huge in Brazil,” he said, “and our study shows that there is a great opportunity for Brazil to build livestock-based production systems and, in doing so, lose some of the domain used lately for livestock production and use that land to produce more soybeans. “
Detailed modeling of the task indicates that by 2035, the strategy could increase Brazil’s soybean production by 36%. At the same time, Grassini said, Brazil could simply “completely and necessarily decrease the amount of carbon dioxide equivalents released into the atmosphere. “, helping to mitigate climate change. “
“This technique strengthens agriculture while protecting fragile ecosystems that are vital to the climate and replacing mitigation and biodiversity conservation,” he said.
To the extent that yields can increase on existing Brazilian farmland, the scientists looked at soybean production in 4 key regions: the Pampas and Atlantic Forest regions along the Atlantic coast, where soybean cultivation has been going on for about 50 years. and the Amazon and Cerrado regions of Brazil’s interior, where soybean production began after the early twenty-first century. the world’s leading database of high-quality agronomic data, covering more than 15 primary food crops in more than 75 countries.
“It appears that it is possible to produce more on existing farmland,” the scientists wrote, “this study brings real answers to the table and will have a major impact on helping Brazil produce more while protecting the environment. “
Grassini warned that the good fortune of dual goals of agricultural expansion and forest cover will require strong institutions, adequate policies and enforcement to ensure that those productivity gains translate well into forest conservation. However, the intensification technique can achieve a moderate balance between agricultural production and the coverage of fragile ecosystems.
Grassini’s team calculated 3 scenarios in the 4 key regions: “business as usual”, where existing trends would continue; “non-expansion of cultivated land”, where the conversion of more land would be prohibited; and “intensification”, where measures would be taken to increase yields, inspire crop production and farm animals.
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