1 Entry points for policy action
“Best bet” Land-use Systems
Country reports
Alternatives to Slash-and-Burn in Brazil
Promoting Sustainable Intensification
Unique id: IDARKAYB
Source file: D:\Projects\ASB\ASB Country and Thematic reports\Brazil country report\ASB Brazil Summary Report.xml
Authors: S. Vosti, C. L. Carpentier, J. Witcover, . Carvalho dos Santos, E. Muñoz Braz, J. Ferreira Valentim, S. J. de Magalhães de Oliveira, C. Palm, F. de Souza Moreira, A. Cattaneo, A. Gillison, A. Mansur Mendes, V. Rodrigues, T. C. de Araújo Gomes, M. V. Neves d’Oliveira, E. do Amaral, S. Fujisaka, C. Castilla, T. Tomich, D. Bignell, D. Gonçalves Cordeiro, A. Hermes Vieira, R.S. Correira da Costa, M. Faminow, M. Locatelli, M. Swift, S. Weise, M. van Noordwijk, N. Sampaio, I. L. Franke, H. J. Borges de Araujo, L. M. Rossi, E. Barros, B. Feigl, S.P. Huang, J. Cares, C. Pinho de Sá, . Carneiro, P. Woomer
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
The land use flow diagram that emerged from the field data analysis (Figure 5, Section 1.6) demonstrated the limited number of land use options actually being deployed by smallholders in the western Brazilian Amazon. Farmers’ adoption concerns, as presented in the ASB matrix (Table 13, Section 4), provided the insight as to why this was so: the very low profitability of traditional forest extraction compared with all other forms of agriculture sound the death-knoll for the forest, while labour scarcity combined with ease of adoption lead inexorably to the spread of the traditional pasture/cattle LUS. Can either or perhaps both of these patterns be altered, and if so, how and with what consequences for deforestation and farm household income?
It is possible to increase the profitability of forest extraction, but policy changes and large institutional investments will be needed to make this happen. The ASB matrix highlighted the potential of small-scale managed forestry to boost the returns to forest-based activities in ways that are compatible with household labour constraints. If this LUS were introduced alongside the necessary institutional and organizational changes, it would enable forests to ‘compete’ more effectively with agricultural alternatives.
The ASB matrix also demonstrated the profitability of several other LUS besides traditional pasture/cattle, some of which—the tree-based systems—also ranked relatively high in terms of carbon sequestration. Most of these systems already form part of the landscape, but none has been broadly adopted. Again, the ASB matrix points to why this might be so: the coffee-based systems require much labour to manage. Improved transport infrastructure and modifications to labour laws could reduce labour costs, especially the transaction costs associated with hiring labour. Finally, policy action can help relieve the two major constraints to the more widespread adoption of improved pasture/livestock systems, namely credit limitations and farmer knowledge.
However, with the exception of small-scale managed forestry, policy action to enhance the adoption of all LUS risks increasing deforestation, since increased profitability only increases the incentives to deforest. Improvements in the enforcement of existing laws could help protect the forest, but would require unprecedented policy action.
It is sometimes argued that extending the life of other activities along the pathway from forest to pasture would benefit farmers and take some pressure off the forest. For example, annual cropping, usually done for at most two years on a given plot, might last four years with improved seeds and/or soil management practices. Since farm households usually manage only one plot of annual cropped land at a time, this might, it is argued, extend the periodicity of deforestation from about every other year to every fourth year. Alternatively, legumes could be used to speed up the ability of fallows to regenerate the productive capacity of soils, thereby increasing the frequency with which a plot could be used for annual crop production. Having one or more such plots continually available for annual crop production would ease the demand for newly deforested land. This would require technological options that improve soil productivity in the cash- and labour-scarce western Brazilian Amazon. Even if such options were available, however, they might miss the mark, since farmers deforest largely in order to increase the amount of land dedicated to other uses (such as perennials or pasture). Policy measures that target only the annuals part of the land use trajectory will probably not be effective in reducing deforestation.
Modelling exercises that build on knowledge of current land use patterns to simulate the probable effects of policy changes on farmer behaviour and the broader economy can help reveal which policy and technology options could have unintended effects in terms of deforestation (and how large these effects may be). This in turn can point the way towards more appropriate targets for policy and technology innovations.