Agricultural Intensification Can Preserve the Brazilian Cerrado: Applying Lessons From Mato Grosso and Goiás to Brazil’s Last Agricultural Frontier

Food security and climate change are two pressing issues shaping the future of tropical land use. Brazil, home to abundant land that is rich in carbon, water, and biodiversity and often cleared for agropastoral and renewable energy purposes, is the ideal location for studying socioeconomic and environmental trade-offs of land use dynamics. Here, I use recent (2000–2016) land-use land-cover change dynamics in the established agricultural states of Mato Grosso and Goiás to demonstrate how incentivizing intensive agricultural practices and improving degraded pastures may be a means by which Brazil can increase agricultural production while conserving the remainder of the Cerrado. I then discuss these outcomes with regard to agricultural expansion in the agricultural frontier region of Matopiba and briefly highlight contextual elements that need to be considered by other developing tropical countries looking toward Brazil as a model for agricultural and economic development.

[1]  Edson E. Sano,et al.  Land cover mapping of the tropical savanna region in Brazil , 2010, Environmental monitoring and assessment.

[2]  R. Garrett,et al.  Green for gold: social and ecological tradeoffs influencing the sustainability of the Brazilian soy industry , 2016 .

[3]  D. Tilman,et al.  Global food demand and the sustainable intensification of agriculture , 2011, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[4]  J. Nørskov,et al.  Farming and the Fate of Wild Nature , 2009 .

[5]  Eric Armijo,et al.  Slowing Amazon deforestation through public policy and interventions in beef and soy supply chains , 2014, Science.

[6]  L. G. Barioni,et al.  When enough should be enough: Improving the use of current agricultural lands could meet production demands and spare natural habitats in Brazil , 2014 .

[7]  R. DeFries,et al.  Decoupling of deforestation and soy production in the southern Amazon during the late 2000s , 2012, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[8]  C. Brannstrom,et al.  Access Regimes and Regional Land Change in the Brazilian Cerrado, 1972–2002 , 2010 .

[9]  J. Mustard,et al.  The drivers of sugarcane expansion in Goiás, Brazil , 2017 .

[10]  S. Hecht.  Soybeans, Development and Conservation on the Amazon Frontier , 2005 .

[11]  Peter Richards,et al.  Soybean Development: The Impact of a Decade of Agricultural Change on Urban and Economic Growth in Mato Grosso, Brazil , 2015, PloS one.

[12]  C. Taylor,et al.  Observations of increased tropical rainfall preceded by air passage over forests , 2012, Nature.

[13]  G. Oliveira,et al.  Sacred groves, sacrifice zones and soy production: globalization, intensification and neo-nature in South America , 2016 .

[14]  Marcos Heil Costa,et al.  Effects of Amazon and Central Brazil deforestation scenarios on the duration of the dry season in the arc of deforestation , 2010 .

[15]  R. Machado,et al.  Conservation of the Brazilian Cerrado , 2005 .

[16]  Marcos Adami,et al.  Recent cropping frequency, expansion, and abandonment in Mato Grosso, Brazil had selective land characteristics , 2014 .

[17]  A. Balmford,et al.  Reconciling Food Production and Biodiversity Conservation: Land Sharing and Land Sparing Compared , 2011, Science.

[18]  Eric F. Lambin,et al.  The new economic geography of land use change: Supply chain configurations and land use in the Brazilian Amazon , 2013 .

[19]  R. DeFries,et al.  Export-oriented deforestation in Mato Grosso: harbinger or exception for other tropical forests? , 2013, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

[20]  B. Soares-Filho,et al.  Role of Brazilian Amazon protected areas in climate change mitigation , 2010, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[21]  P. Brando,et al.  The Forests of the Amazon and Cerrado Moderate Regional Climate and Are the Key to the Future , 2017 .

[22]  M. Coe,et al.  Land‐use change affects water recycling in Brazil's last agricultural frontier , 2016, Global change biology.

[23]  B. Soares-Filho,et al.  Large-scale expansion of agriculture in Amazonia may be a no-win scenario , 2013 .

[24]  R. DeFries,et al.  Agricultural intensification and changes in cultivated areas, 1970–2005 , 2009, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[25]  M. G. Ceddia,et al.  Governance, agricultural intensification, and land sparing in tropical South America , 2014, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[26]  G. Eiten,et al.  The cerrado vegetation of Brazil , 1972, The Botanical Review.

[27]  H. K. Gibbs,et al.  Brazil's Soy Moratorium , 2015, Science.

[28]  P. Richards.  Exchange Rates, Soybean Supply Response, and Deforestation in South America , 2012 .

[29]  Douglas C. Morton,et al.  Physical Landscape Correlates of the Expansion of Mechanized Agriculture in Mato Grosso, Brazil , 2005 .

[30]  J. Assunção,et al.  Towards Efficient Land Use In Brazil , 2015 .

[31]  Marcos Heil Costa,et al.  Cerrado Conservation is Essential to Protect the Amazon Rainforest , 2010, AMBIO.

[32]  G. Colli,et al.  Habitat loss and the effectiveness of protected areas in the Cerrado Biodiversity Hotspot , 2015, Natureza & Conservação.

[33]  M. E. Ferreira,et al.  Pervasive transition of the Brazilian land-use system , 2014 .

[34]  J. Mustard,et al.  Socioeconomic development and agricultural intensification in Mato Grosso , 2013, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

[35]  Robert K. Kaufmann,et al.  An interdisciplinary model of soybean yield in the Amazon Basin: The climatic, edaphic, and economic determinants , 2008 .

[36]  R. Lal,et al.  Soil carbon storage and sequestration potential in the Cerrado Region of Brazil. , 2006 .

[37]  Andrew Balmford,et al.  Farming and the Fate of Wild Nature , 2005, Science.

[38]  Michael T. Coe,et al.  Deforestation and climate feedbacks threaten the ecological integrity of south–southeastern Amazonia , 2013, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.