Can preferential credit programs speed up the adoption of low-carbon agricultural systems in Mato Grosso, Brazil? Results from bioeconomic microsimulation

The need to balance agricultural production and environmental protection shifted the focus of Brazilian land-use policy toward sustainable agriculture. In 2010, Brazil established preferential credit lines to finance investments into low-carbon integrated agricultural systems of crop, livestock and forestry. This article presents a simulation-based empirical assessment of integrated system adoption in the state of Mato Grosso, where highly mechanized soybean–cotton and soybean–maize doublecrop systems currently prevail. We employ bioeconomic modeling to explicitly capture the heterogeneity of farm level costs and benefits of adoption. By parameterizing and validating our simulations with both empirical and experimental data, we evaluate the effectiveness of the ABC Integration credit through indicators such as land-use change, adoption rates and budgetary costs of credit provision. Alternative scenarios reveal that specific credit conditions might speed up the diffusion of low-carbon agricultural systems in Mato Grosso

Halonickel 2,4-di-t-butyl-6-(quinolin-8-yliminomethyl)phenolates: Synthesis, characterization and ethylene reactivity

A series of nickel halides bearing 2,4-di-t-butyl-6-(quinolin-8- yliminomethyl) phenolate ligands was synthesized and characterized by IR spectroscopy and elemental analysis. Molecular structures of C1 (R = H, X = Br) and C2 (R = H, X = Cl) were further confirmed by single-crystal X-ray crystallographic studies, and revealed a distorted square planar geometry at nickel. Upon activation with diethylaluminum chloride (Et2AlCl), all nickel pre-catalysts displayed good catalytic activity [up to 9.3 × 105 g mol-1 (Ni) h-1] for ethylene oligomerization with major dimerization. In the presence of methylaluminoxane (MAO), the nickel complex C1 was capable of ethylene polymerization under 3 MPa, and produced polyethylene products with narrow polydispersity (1.16-1.73) and molecular weights in the range of 2.6-4.95 kg/mol. © 2013 Chinese Chemical Society, Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg