Reconciling the increasing global food demand with limited land resources and low environmental impact is a major global challenge (FAO 2018a; Godfray and Garnett 2014; Yao et al. 2017). South America has been a significant contributor of the world’s agricultural production growth in the last three decades (OECD and FAO 2015), driven partly by increased export opportunities for specific commodities, mainly soybeans and meat (poultry, beef and pork).
Agricultural expansion, however, has driven profound landscape transformations in the region, particularly between the 1970s and early 2000s, contributing to increased deforestation rates and associated GHG emissions. High rates of native vegetation conversion were found in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay and Peru (FAO 2016b; Graesser et al. 2015), threatening ecologically important biomes, such as the Amazon, the savannas (Cerrado, Chacos and Lannos), the Atlantic Rainforest, the Caatinga, and the Yungas. The Amazon biome is a particularly sensitive biome as it provides crucial ecosystem services including biodiversity, hydrological processes (through evapotranspiration, cloud formation, and precipitation), and biogeochemical cycles (including carbon) (Bogaerts et al. 2017; Fearnside 2015; Beuchle et al. 2015; Grecchi et al. 2014; Celentano et al. 2017; Soares-Filho et al. 2014; Nogueira et al. 2018). Further, deforestation associated with commodity exports has not led to inclusive socioeconomic development, but rather has exacerbated social inequality and created more challenging living conditions for lower-income people (Celentano et al. 2017). Nor has it avoided increased hunger of local populations in the last few years (FAO 2018b).
In the mid-2000s, governments, food industries, NGOs, and international programmes joined forces to put in place important initiatives to respond to the growing concerns about the environmental impacts of agricultural expansion in the region (Negra et al. 2014; Finer et al. 2018). Brazil led regional action by launching the Interministerial Plan of Action for Prevention and Control of Deforestation of the Legal Amazon2 (PPCDAm), associated with development of a real-time deforestation warning system. Further, Brazil built capacity to respond to alerts by coordinated efforts of ministries, the federal police, the army and public prosecution (Negra et al. 2014; Finer et al. 2018).
Other countries in the region have also launched similar strategies, including a zero-deforestation plan in Paraguay in 2004 (Gasparri and de Waroux 2015), and no-deforestation zones in Argentina in 2007 (Garcia Collazo et al. 2013). Peru also developed the National System of Monitoring and Control, led by the National Forest Service and Wildlife Authority (SERFOR), to provide information and coordinate response to deforestation events, and Colombia started producing quarterly warning reports on active fronts of deforestation in the country (Finer et al. 2018).
Engagement of the food industry and NGOs, particularly through the Soy Moratorium (from 2006) and Beef Moratorium (from 2009) also contributed effectively to keep deforestation at low historical rates in the regions where they were implemented (Nepstad et al. 2014 and Gibbs et al. 2015). In 2012, Brazil also created the national land registry system (SICAR), a georeferenced database, which allows monitoring of farms’ environmental liability in order to grant access to rural credit. Besides the governmental schemes, funding agencies and the Amazon Fund provide financial resources to assist smallholder farmers to comply with environmental regulations (Jung et al. 2017).
5
Box 5.4 (continued)
Nevertheless, Azevedo et al. (2017) argue that the full potential of these financial incentives has not been achieved, due to weak enforcement mechanisms and limited supporting public policies. Agricultural expansion and intensification have complex interactions with deforestation. While mechanisms have been implemented in the region to protect native forests and ecosystems, control of deforestation rates require stronger governance of natural resources (Ceddia et al. 2013 and Oliveira and Hecht 2016), including monitoring programmes to evaluate fully the results of land-use policies in the region.
Public and private sector actions resulted in a reduction of the Brazilian legal Amazon deforestation rate from 2.78 Mha yr–1 in 2004, to about 0.75 Mha yr–1 (ca. 0.15%) in 2009 (INPE 2015), oscillating from 0.46 Mha and 0.79 Mha (2016) since then (INPE 2018; Boucher and Chi 2018). The governmental forest protection scheme was also expanded to other biomes. As a result, the Brazilian Cerrado deforestation was effectively reduced from 2.9 Mha yr–1 in 2004 to an average of 0.71 Mha yr–1 in 2016–2017 (INPE 2018).
Overall, deforestation rates in South America have declined significantly, with current deforestation rates being about half of rates in the early 2000s (FAOSTAT 2018). However, inconsistent conservation policies across countries (Gibbs et al. 2015) and recent hiccups (Curtis et al. 2018) indicate that deforestation control still requires stronger reinforcement mechanisms (Tollefson 2018). Further, there are important spill-over effects that need coordinated international governance. Curtis et al. (2018) and Dou et al. (2018) point out that, although the Amazon deforestation rate decreased in Brazil, it has increased in other regions, particularly in South Asia, and in other countries in South America, resulting in nearly constant deforestation rates worldwide.
Despite the reduced expansion rates into forest land, agricultural production continues to rise steadily in South America, relying on increasing productivity and substitution of extensive pastureland by crops. The average soybean and maize productivity in the region increased from 1.8 and 2.0 t ha–1 in 1990 to 3.0 and 5.0 t ha–1, respectively, in 2015 (FAOSTAT 2018). Yet, higher crop productivity was not enough to meet growing demand for cereals and oilseeds and cultivation continued to expand, mainly on grasslands (Richards 2015). The reconciliation of this expansion with higher demand for meat and dairy products was carried out through the intensification of livestock systems (Martha et al. 2012). Nevertheless, direct and indirect deforestation still occurs, and recently deforestation rates have increased (INPE 2018), albeit they remain far smaller than observed in the 2000–2010 period.
The effort towards sustainable intensification has also been incorporated in agricultural policies. In Brazil, for instance, the reduction of deforestation, the restoration of degraded pasture areas, the adoption of integrated agroforestry systems3 and no-till agricultural techniques play a major role in the nation’s voluntary commitments to reduce GHG emissions in the country’s NAMAs (Mozzer 2011) and NDCs (Silva Oliveira et al. 2017; Rochedo et al. 2018). Such commitment under the UNFCCC is operationalised through the Low Carbon Agriculture Plan (ABC),4 which is based on low interest credit for investment in sustainable agricultural technologies (Mozzer 2011). Direct pasture restoration and integrated systems reduce area requirements (Strassburg et al. 2014), and increase organic matter (Gil et al. 2015; Bungenstab 2012; Maia et al. 2009), contributing to overall lifecycle emissions reduction (Cardoso et al. 2016; de Oliveira Silva et al. 2016). Also, increased adoption of supplementation and feedlots, often based on agroindustrial co-products and agricultural crop residues are central to improve productivity and increase climate resilience of livestock systems (Mottet et al. 2017a; van Zanten et al. 2018).
Despite providing clear environmental and socio-economic co-benefits, including improved resource productivity, socio-environmental sustainability and higher economic competitiveness, implementation of the Brazilian Low Carbon Agriculture Plan is behind schedule (Köberle et al. 2016). Structural inefficiencies related to the allocation and distribution of resources need to be addressed to put the plan on track to meet its emissions reduction targets. Monitoring and verification are fundamental tools to guarantee the successful implementation of the plan.
Overall, historical data and projections show that South America is one of the regions of the world with the highest potential to increase crop and livestock production in the coming decades in a sustainable manner (Cohn et al. 2014), increasing food supply to more densely populated regions in Asia, Middle East and Europe. However, a great and coordinated effort is required from governments, industry, traders, scientists and the international community to improve planning, monitoring and innovation to guarantee sustainable intensification of its agricultural systems, contribution to GHG mitigation, and conservation of the surrounding environment (Negra et al. 2014; Curtis et al. 2018 and Lambin et al. 2018).
3 Integrated agroforestry systems are agricultural systems that strategically integrate two or more components among crops, livestock and forestry. The activities can be in consortium, succession or rotation in order to achieve overall synergy.