The emergence of Brazil as a huge net exporter of foodstuffs is one of the most dramatic stories of recent economic history. If there is one country that can claim to feed the world, it is Brazil. It is not the world’s largest producer of food, or even the largest exporter. But it has the largest net trade surplus in foodstuffs i.e. it provides the biggest net flow of food to global markets. Brazil is one of the few large producers with additional capacity to increase exports. Its model of agriculture is touted as a model for the development of Savannah agriculture in Africa. Brazil is also by the same token one of the countries, of near-continental size, where the future of the world’s climate will be decided. The Amazon is key to the global ecosystem. And land use changes more generally make Brazil, despite its modest level of industrial production and affluence, into one of the largest sources of CO2 emissions in the world.
Excellent piece! Three brief comments: on the cattle-agriculture nexus, on cerrado v. Amazon, and a timelapse video of agriculture expansion.
1. Cattle-ranching and grains are hard to separate that neatly, in practice. The most common pattern of land use in Brazil, underpinned by flimsy land titles, is the following cycle: non-sustainable forestry (cutting down trees), slash-and-burn for pastures, cattle grazing, agriculture. Early stages bear the deforestation brunt and sell on ‘legal’ land titles for agricultural use, as prices (for deforested and ‘legally owned’ land) rise in a financialised process. This article explains it well (see esp. section 4): https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2019.104313.
2. The expansion of soybeans and maize has indeed been concentrated in the cerrado/savannah but already involves the Amazon. The northern section of the centre-west region is the Amazon biome.
Many thanks for this. Food fo thought if you can forgive the pun.
The following piece is deeply pessimistic about climate change and the diminishing capacity of the rain forests to sequester carbon. The cause? Not deforestation, which is declining, but climate change itself. Thanks again
Excellent piece! Three brief comments: on the cattle-agriculture nexus, on cerrado v. Amazon, and a timelapse video of agriculture expansion.
1. Cattle-ranching and grains are hard to separate that neatly, in practice. The most common pattern of land use in Brazil, underpinned by flimsy land titles, is the following cycle: non-sustainable forestry (cutting down trees), slash-and-burn for pastures, cattle grazing, agriculture. Early stages bear the deforestation brunt and sell on ‘legal’ land titles for agricultural use, as prices (for deforested and ‘legally owned’ land) rise in a financialised process. This article explains it well (see esp. section 4): https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2019.104313.
2. The expansion of soybeans and maize has indeed been concentrated in the cerrado/savannah but already involves the Amazon. The northern section of the centre-west region is the Amazon biome.
3. This time-lapse video is centred on Sinop, in the north of the state of Mato Grosso (the fastest growing state in Brazil for the last decades, focussed on soybeans and maize and involving cerrado and Amazon). The steady transition from forest to soybeans is striking: https://earth.google.com/web/search/sinpo/@-11.2357524,-56.31880299,485.02016521a,724082.66978793d,35y,0h,0t,0r/data=CjoiJgokCQAAAAAAAAAAEQAAAAAAAAAAGQAAAAAAAAAAIQAAAAAAAAAAOhAIAREAAAAAAAAAQBjLDyABMikKJwolCiExU2JtTTRWMXhiM3A4Y2FQdUpEQk9nTXBobDZNeXFlTGsgAToDCgEx
Many thanks for this. Food fo thought if you can forgive the pun.
The following piece is deeply pessimistic about climate change and the diminishing capacity of the rain forests to sequester carbon. The cause? Not deforestation, which is declining, but climate change itself. Thanks again
https://theconversation.com/we-tracked-300-000-trees-only-to-find-that-rainforests-are-losing-their-power-to-help-humanity-133122
Land Sparing is a lie: Saving A Rainforest And Losing The World New book on issue https://yalebooks.co.uk/9780300272482/saving-a-rainforest-and-losing-the-world
Excellent piece. I was puzzled by the 'land-saving' when the underlying raw land use was not explicitly stated.
Please see the New Yorker of April 8th 2024, "letter from roriaima."
Seems necessary to talk about the impact of gold mining in the Amazon basin to speak about land use there
Obrigado. Excelent. Can I add: https://camargo-pedro.medium.com/o-sucesso-do-agro-b103b36b7c40
Ilegal deforestation is still a major issue.
Best
Pedro