Browsing by Person "Dias Bernardes Gil, Juliana"

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Land use change, agricultural intensification and low-carbon agricultural practices in Mato Grosso, Brazil
(2016) Dias Bernardes Gil, Juliana; Berger, Thomas
The process of land use change in Brazil has implications for food security, climate change and socioeconomic development at the local, regional and global levels. Largely driven by agricultural expansion over the past decades, such processes are likely to become even more pronounced in the coming years as Brazil is expected to satisfy a significant share of the global demand for food and energy. In an effort to prevent further forest clearance and associated greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions, the Brazilian Federal Government has been promoting agricultural intensification through farming practices able to increase crop and livestock productivity while restoring degraded lands. Particular attention has been dedicated to the beef cattle sector in Mato Grosso state, a globally important center of agricultural production in Southern Amazonia, where some of the highest crop productivity levels contrast with pastures of low average stocking rates. Two agricultural intensification strategies of growing importance in Mato Grosso are pasture to crop conversion (P2C) and integrated crop-livestock-forest systems (IS). While the first is a consequence of cropland expansion on pastures and might continue to happen through expected shifts in the relative profitability of certain commodities, the second entails the adoption of complex management practices and may be conditional on incentives and the existence of a favorable institutional context. Even though the Federal Government has already established policies and programs to promote P2C and IS and relies on both to reduce its total GHG emissions, the level of IS adoption remains low and many aspects of P2C and IS –including the drivers, barriers and impacts associated to their adoption –are poorly understood. This thesis sheds light on some of these uncertainties, elucidating where, how and why P2C and IS happen. Using a combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods such as surveys, focus groups, remote sensing, spatial econometrics and agent-based modeling, it seeks a better understanding of the interplay between farmers’ characteristics and preferences, supply chain infrastructure, market conditions and institutional factors, as well as how these may constrain or catalyze specific LUC pathways. Based on these findings, it ultimately compares the impacts of P2C and IS and concludes that the latter may offer greater benefits. The Introduction contextualizes the research questions explored in the subsequent chapters by offering an overview of land use change in Brazil and briefly reviewing the literature on agricultural intensification. The following chapters (2, 3, 4 and 5) form the core of the thesis and correspond to scientific publications developed during the Ph.D. program, all focused on Mato Grosso. Results are analyzed in an integrated manner under Discussion & Conclusion in light of the broader implications of agricultural intensification through P2C and IS, finally leading to policy recommendations. Chapter 2 quantifies P2C and investigates its drivers, revealing that: i) cattle vs. soy profitability and land prices do not fully explain P2C location; ii) land attributes on which classical agricultural development theories are based, may favour P2C but do not fully explain it; and iii) socioeconomic and institutional constraints are important in controlling pasture conversion, including non-productive sources of utility, producers’ perception of contract enforcement, land markets and P2C-related transaction costs. Chapters 3, 4 and 5 are dedicated to IS. Chapter 3 reveals the state-of-the-art of IS and how farmers perceive it, showing that: i) IS were concentrated in less than a third of the counties of Mato Grosso state –most of which were crop-livestock systems (iCL); ii) producers usually adopted one of three iCL strategies; and iii) the strategy choice was correlated with the land use transition undergone by each producer. Building on these findings, chapter 4 examines the determinants of wide-scale IS adoption and assesses the importance of household- and county-level variables, revealing that: i) adopters of iCL systems are better educated and have more access to technical assistance than specialized producers; ii) greater similarity exists between counties with iCL systems and soy-dominant vs. pasture-dominant counties; and iii) the presence of soy and pasture in a county is not a predictor of the occurrence of iCL systems. Finally, chapter 5 employs a bio-economic model that assesses how effective credit provision is in supporting the adoption of low-carbon systems –specifically IS and planted forests. The model simulates future land use changes in Mato Grosso under different credit scenarios and suggests that: i) credit has the potential to prompt greater adoption of IS; and ii) changes in the credit conditions (e.g. interest rates, down payment share and capital requirements) influence rates of IS adoption differently. Most existing studies on land use change in Brazil are limited to the debate between intensification vs. extensification and tend to project the effects of intensification at an aggregate level, overlooking the different drivers and impacts of specific intensification pathways. By exploring the particularities of IS and P2C, this work offers evidence that these are two distinct intensification strategies with widely different impacts – and, thus, should not be treated indistinguishably by policy makers. The merit of this thesis relies not only on its innovative theoretical approach, but also on its multidisciplinary and multi-scale nature. Through the mapping, measurement, description and interpretation of IS and P2C, it provides results able to inform policy making, facilitate the monitoring of existing policies and set the ground for subsequent research.