Agricultural land-use expansion dynamics in Brazil

• Ano de defesa: 2013
• Autor(a) principal: Alberto Giaroli de Oliveira Pereira Barretto
• Orientador(a): Gerd Sparovek
• Banca de defesa: Jose Alexandre Melo Dematte, Giampaolo Queiroz Pellegrino, Stefan Wirsenius
• Tipo de documento: Tese
• Tipo de acesso: Acesso aberto
• Idioma: eng
• Instituição de defesa: Universidade de São Paulo
• Programa de Pós-Graduação: Agronomia (Solos e Nutrição de Plantas)
• País: BR
• Link de acesso: https://doi.org/10.11606/T.11.2013.tde-28032013-110939

Brazil is one of the most important global agricultural players. In the last decades, agricultural production has increased drastically as a result of expansion in area and productivity growth, which made Brazil a worldwide leading producer of beef, soybean, sugar, ethanol broiler and coffee. The difficulties of world stock renewal and the sharp consumption increase especially of grains such as corn, soybean and wheat result in favorable conditions for agricultural leading regions to continue increasing production. However, there is a lack of evidence-based research at large scale that address complex land-use changes dynamics related to agricultural growth of area and productivity. The purpose of this thesis is to approach controversial or under-investigated key-points of this central issue by using spatial modeling and open access databases. First, the availability of areas suitable for cropland expansion was estimated trough a spatially explicit model at national scale. Second, the effects of productivity changes on area changes were investigated both for pasture and cropland by a long-term retrospective spatial analysis that covered the period 1960-2006. Third, a comprehensive and effective spatial model using key variables was developed to identify the Brazilian agricultural frontier. Forth, the relationship between deforestation, cropland expansion and pasture expansion was analyzed in the Legal Amazon region and evidences for a better understanding of causal-effect relation in land-use change were suggested. The assembly of papers led to the following main findings: (i) Brazil has a huge amount of land covered by pastures (122 million hectares) with suitable biophysical conditions for intensive crop production; (ii) Historically, there is a clear distinction in landuse dynamics between agriculturally consolidated areas and the agricultural frontier. In agriculturally consolidated areas, cropland yield increases have been associated with pasture intensification and stability or contraction in total farmland area. In contrast, in agricultural frontier areas, cropland yield increases have been associated with agricultural expansion; (iii) Spatial examination of land use transitions since 1960 illustrates the expansion and gradual movement of the agricultural frontier towards the inland of Brazil. However, it also suggests the possible initiation of a reversed trend, i.e. agricultural contraction, in steep areas of the Southeast within the Atlantic Forest biome, which might be in line with the Forest Transition theory (FT); (iv) In Legal Amazon during 2000-2009, cattle population growth, cropland expansion and deforestation were in general concurrent at the municipal level, suggesting a need for modifying the widespread notion of cropland expansion in consolidated regions as a prime causal factor of indirect deforestation through displacement of pastures from these regions to frontier regions.