Leonor Assad and Eduardo Assad
Producing food is one of the functions of agriculture, livestock, and plant and animal extractive activities. In Brazil, the food we consume is accounted for in the agriculture GDP(1)1, which represented 2% of the Brazilian GDP, and the agribusiness GDP(1)1, which represented 24.31% of Brazil's GDP. But, the Second National Survey on Food Insecurity in the Context of the Covid-19 Pandemic in Brazil, published in 2022, pointed out that 33.1 million people are not guaranteed what to eat - which represents 14 million new hungry Brazilians (Agência Senado, 2022) (2).2.
As Professor Gerd Sparovek points out in the preface of the study "Food Production in Brazil: geography, chronology and evolution", by Ana Chamma and collaborators (2021):
"75 years after the publication of Geography of Hunger(3)3, Brazil has certainly changed... (but despite) becoming a major global agricultural power, the problems of hunger and malnutrition have not been solved and have ended up adding to others also linked to nutrition, such as obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular conditions, and other manifestations of chronic non-transmissible diseases."
And, even if many are skeptical, equating the dilemma of job generation x availability and quality of food involves strengthening agriculture, particularly in a country of continental dimensions such as Brazil. And there are many alternatives. Here we will list the first: the recovery of degraded areas, which counts on a framework of laws and financial instruments since the 1980s.
After all, what is a degraded area?
An area is considered to be degraded when deforestation or profound soil alterations cause such intense disturbance that they prevent natural regeneration, i.e., without human action. A study conducted by Embrapa Pecuária Sudeste points out that recovering a pasture is about 30% cheaper than establishing it again; and both costs can be high nowadays, depending on the size of the area and the region where it is located. In the recovery of a pasture, liming and fertilization is usually done to promote the regrowth of existing plants from the existing plant population. But in many cases the forage plant population density is so bad that there are not enough plants to reestablish the pasture. In general, it is considered that if the pasture has areas of more than 2 square meters2 without the main forage, a new implementation of the pasture is necessary.
Data from Lapig/UFG, based on analysis of Landsat satellite images from 1985 to 2020, show that pastures in Brazil in 2020 covered 18.72% of the Brazilian territory, or 158,966,950.223 ha. Of this total, 22% were in a severe stage of degradation and 41.4% were in an intermediate stage of degradation. In other words, with the adoption of liming and fertilization practices for pasture, adequate animal load and ensuring the necessary rest period for recovery, more than 65.8 million hectares of pastures that are in an intermediate stage of degradation can be recovered. With the recovery of these pastures and considering an animal load of 1.27 animals per hectare it would be possible to expand the cattle herd by 83.5 million head, without opening new areas, the so-called land-saving effect.
Considering the reduction of greenhouse gases, works such as the one developed by Eduardo Assad at FGV's Bioeconomy Observatory show that it is possible to take advantage of this potential and additionally reduce GHG emissions. The authors developed a projection and mitigation model for different decarbonization actions in cattle ranching, in which they considered a scenario of gradual reduction of degraded pastures in Brazil until the year 2030. Using this model, they showed that 27.5 Mha of degraded pastures could be recovered, offering productivity gains to the cattle herd, which would reach a stocking rate of 1.27 head per hectare. In addition, there would be a total net removal of carbon of 1,223.6 Mt CO2eq, an average of 94.1 Mt CO2eq/year, thus reversing the emissions of the cattle ranching system associated with pastures.
Impacts of pasture recuperation
A study A study by Esalq/USP researchers, coordinated by Prof. Joaquim Bento de Souza Ferreira Filho, evaluated the gains from recovering 19.4 million hectares of degraded pastures between 2010 and 2018. The study presented two scenarios: the first took into account 19.4 million hectares of degraded pastureland recovered in the country between 2010 and 2018. And the second pointed out that only the 4.1 million hectares recovered through the ABC Program credit line specific for pasture recovery, which financed R$8.1 billion between 2013 and 2020. Assuming the macroeconomic variables as of 2015, the observed increase, accumulated in 2021, of 0.31% of the GDP in scenario 1 and 0.07% in scenario 2, represents, computed over the 2015 value. This represented a social gain of R$ 16.9 billion in scenario 1 and R$ 4.2 billion in scenario 2.
What's more, the increase in productivity provided by the recovery of degraded pastures contributed to a significant additional increase in cattle production in the locations researched. In scenario 1, the variation in Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catarina was 25.8% in meat production and 13.8% in the dairy chain. Important increases were also observed in Rondônia, Paraná, and Mato Grosso do Sul. In scenario 2, an increase of 5.2% in the production of beef cattle was observed in Goiás and 1.71% in the production of milk in Paraná. It is noteworthy that milk and meat are important foods in the diet of most Brazilians and the increase in supply contributes to lower prices.
It is worth pointing out that the gains in the recovery of degraded pastures go beyond the increase in rural producer income due to the increase in productivity of beef and dairy cattle. There is also an increase in family consumption, an increase in jobs and wages, an increase in taxes, and environmental benefits. After all, recovered and well managed pastures are efficient in controlling erosion due to the action of water and soil winds, they allow the infiltration of water into the soil, which is an important process in maintaining water resources and ensure the activity of soil organisms. What's more, pastures in good condition emit less greenhouse gases than degraded pastures, contributing to the quality of life on the planet.
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1- The agricultural GDP measures what is called "production inside the farm gate" and is calculated by the IBGE. On the other hand, the agribusiness GDP encompasses the agricultural production and the economic activities of other activity sectors (industry and services), involving the production of inputs for farming, farming itself, the agribusinesses that process these raw materials, and the distribution and other services needed for the agricultural and agribusiness products to reach the final consumer. In the country, this calculation is made by CEPEA/ESALQ-USP with the support of CNA.
2- Agência Senado, 2022. Brazil's return to the UN's Hunger Map worries senators and scholars, by Aline Guedes. Published on 10/14/2022.
3- Geography of Hunger, by Josué de Castro. The Brazilian dilemma: bread or steel. 9. ed. São Paulo: Brasiliense, 1965.
