Recent cropping frequency, expansion, and abandonment in Mato Grosso, Brazil had selective land characteristics

This letter uses satellite remote sensing to examine patterns of cropland expansion, cropland abandonment, and changing cropping frequency in Mato Grosso, Brazil from 2001 to 2011. During this period, Mato Grosso emerged as a globally important center of agricultural production. In 2001, 3.3 million hectares of mechanized agriculture were cultivated in Mato Grosso, of which 500 000 hectares had two commercial crops per growing season (double cropping). By 2011, Mato Grosso had 5.8 million hectares of mechanized agriculture, of which 2.9 million hectares were double cropped. We found these agricultural changes to be selective with respect to land attributes —significant differences (p \u3c 0.001) existed between the land attributes of agriculture versus nonagriculture, single cropping versus double cropping, and expansion versus abandonment. Many of the land attributes (elevation, slope, maximum temperature, minimum temperature, initial soy transport costs, and soil) that were associated with an increased likelihood of expansion were associated with a decreased likelihood of abandonment (p \u3c 0.001). While land similar to agriculture and double cropping in 2001 was much more likely to be developed for agriculture than all other land, new cropland shifted to hotter, drier, lower locations that were more isolated from agricultural infrastructure (p \u3c 0.001). The scarcity of high quality remaining agricultural land available for agricultural expansion in Mato Grosso could be contributing to the slowdown in agricultural expansion observed there over 2006 to 2011. Land use policy analyses should control for land scarcity constraints on agricultural expansion

Eco-certification and greening the Brazilian soy and corn supply chains

Garrett et al ’s recent letter (2013 Environ. Res. Lett.   8 044055) shows the trade value of Brazil’s production of non-genetically modified (GM) crops, and argues that production for this niche market laid the foundation for the expansion of a variety of non-GM and eco-certification systems. We argue that the conditions underlying the development and perpetuation of the non-GM certification systems are transient. The expansion of soy production has dampened the conditions that promoted the dominance of non-GM soy in the region. The state at the heart of the production of conventional soy, Mato Grosso, already has transitioned to almost 90% GM soy in the most recent agricultural season. The continued viability of eco-certification systems depends on strengthening institutions on the demand side, and ensuring farm-level costs on the supply side match price premiums reaching the farm level

Collecting Sketch Maps To Understand Property Land Use And Land Cover In Large Surveys.

This article describes a method to collect data on the spatial organization of land use within a rural property as part of a large-scale project examining the linkages between household demographic change and land use and land cover change in the Brazilian Amazon. Previous studies used several different spatial approaches, including maps and satellite images, to improve the information collected in standard survey questionnaires. However, few used sketch maps to obtain information from the point of view of the survey respondent about the spatial organization of land use and infrastructure. We developed a method of creating sketch maps with respondents to describe their properties. These maps then provided a spatially referenced database of the social and land use organization of the properties from the perspective of the respondent. Systematic rules allowed sketches to be used in subsequent spatial analyses in combination with satellite images and Global Positioning System reference points.2066-8

Ciclos de vida de la propiedad y del hogar, mercados y cambios en el uso y la cobertura de la tierra en la Amazonia brasileña

Las etapas iniciales del asentamiento fronterizo en la Amazonia brasileña se caracterizaron por la gran intensidad de la afluencia de flujos migratorios, la deforestación y la rotación de la propiedad. Cuarenta años más tarde, los hogares rurales están más orientados al mercado y han desarrollado estrategias para adaptarse al ambiente local. A partir de teorías sobre la demografía de los hogares y de la renta ofertada (bid-rent), en este trabajo se propone un marco conceptual para los cambios en el uso y la cobertura de la tierra en las fronteras agrícolas, basado en una relación interactiva entre los ciclos de vida de la propiedad y del hogar, no obstante la historia del uso de la propiedad. A partir de datos de encuestas longitudinales realizadas en Altamira (Brasil), se halló que los hogares más antiguos (ciclo de vida del hogar) y las propiedades más cercanas a los centros urbanos (integración en los mercados) se asocian con mayores niveles de deforestación, pero no se encontraron pruebas de que la experiencia con el ambiente agrícola (ciclo de vida en la propiedad) reduzca la presión en el bosque restante. En el caso del uso de la tierra para fines comerciales, el capital in situ y la distancia de los mercados dominan los marcadores demográficos, sugiriendo que Altamira se encuentra en una etapa de desarrollo avanzada

Poverty dynamics, ecological endowments, and land use among smallholders in the Brazilian Amazon

Rural settlement in previously sparsely occupied areas of the Brazilian Amazon has been associated with high levels of forest loss and unclear long-term social outcomes. We focus here on the micro-level processes in one settlement area to answer the question of how settler and farm endowments affect household poverty. We analyze the extent to which poverty is sensitive to changes in natural capital, land use strategies, and biophysical characteristics of properties (particularly soil quality). Cumulative time spent in poverty is simulated using Markovian processes, which show that accessibility to markets and land use system are especially important for decreasing poverty among households in our sample. Wealthier households are selected into commercial production of perennials before our initial observation, and are therefore in poverty a lower proportion of the time. Land in pasture, in contrast, has an independent effect on reducing the proportion of time spent in poverty. Taken together, these results show that investments in roads and the institutional structures needed to make commercial agriculture or ranching viable in existing and new settlement areas can improve human well-being in frontiers