Reducing forestry in Brazil
What steps are being taken to encourage sustainable agriculture and reduce deforestation? Presenters at a recent AgriSustainability Talks session claimed that Brazil has experienced a lot of changes recently.
A conference with the subject “Towards Ecological Food Privacy: Cooperation and Supply Chain Resistance” was held on November 22, 2022, at the Brazilian Embassy in London. Two panels, with the goal of investigating sustainable agricultural adaptations within the food sector, talked about Brazil’s importance in the worldwide food market and—most importantly—what it is doing to combat deforestation.
Brazil’s use of soil
Brazil is home to one-third of all people in the region and is the fifth largest continent on Earth.
Nevertheless, despite having a sizable population, Brazil lost 62.8 million hectares of tree cover during reduction. This level of deforestation, reported by Global Forestry Watch, affected the earth with 33.6Gt of CO2e emissions.
Speaking at the occasion, Brazilian Agriculture Research Cooperation researcher Gabriel the director revealed that the country produces food on 7.6% of its land, accounting for 1.9 percent of global emissions.
despite the fact there are safeguards in place to stop widespread forest loss in the nation of Brazil, the Council on Foreign Relations claims that deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon Rainforest is threatening to “accelerate into a point of no returning.”
Deforestation: lawful versus illegal
The Forest Code of Brazil permits a certain amount of deforestation. This Code was first published in 1934 and underwent revisions in 1965 and 2012. According to The Nature Conservancy, landowners in the heart of the Amazon are mandated by law to keep between 35 and eighty per cent of their land covered in native flora.
As a result, this rule permits all kinds of rural farmers to purchase land in the Amazon, but they are only permitted to cultivate 20% of it, which restricts the amount of agricultural produce they can produce overall.
But even with the Forest Code in existence, Nepomuceno notes that there are apparently still problems with land preservation. He specifically names “land grabbing, illegal loggers, and illegal miners.”
Additionally, it was reported by the Brazilian National Institute for Space Research (BNISR) that in the first half of 2022, over 3,980 acres of the Amazon were cleared of trees. To make matters worse, according to the BNISR, this is the largest number in at least the past six years, indicating that deforestation is a persistent issue that is becoming worse.
The executive director of Agroicone, Roberto Lima, disclosed at the Embassy that Brazil aims to achieve “zero illegal deforestation by 2022.” But given that the Amazon’s deforestation hit a record high this year, it seems like there is still more work to be done in order to acquire acreage in a sustainable manner.
You may also like:
Food security in emerging nations: issues and remedies
Are drinks the secret to increasing cannabis use among consumers?
Managing the lack of labour for mushroom picking
Restarting the clearing of forests process
But money isn’t the only factor. The event’s speakers made it clear that there are many people who are worried about meat exports and how they relate to emissions and deforestation.
According to Tesco’s Sustainability Director, Anna Turrell, “sustainability is now key for consumers” when making food purchases. She emphasized that deforestation sustainable is a “systematic issue” that “will require systematic changes” and full industry cooperation.
“We cannot solve deforestation but we can have a damn good go at it,” said Turrell, acknowledging his partial but not absolute failure and implying that there are still adjustments that can be made to guarantee that environmentally conscious farming is given priority..
Which is Brazil’s next course of action?
The presenters concurred that joint initiatives are important for “combining conserving forests with safeguards from economic and social perspectives” as they looked to the future.
Paulo Moutinho, Senior Researcher at the Amazon Environmental Research Institute, referred to the Amazon Rainforest as a “green ocean” and stated that “if we burn [the Amazon], we are in trouble in terms of climate change,” implying that it is imperative to reduce the high levels of deforestation that have occurred recently.
Moutinho was states that although “there is great effort from people to make the supply chain free of deforestation,” more decisions must be made to maintain the “green ocean” in order to benefit “Brazilians, food producers, investors, and the planet.”
Both panels agreed that although Brazil has made significant progress toward sustainable farming, more work needs to be done.
But when newly elected Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva assumes office as president of Brazil on January 1, 2023, he will need to address the long-term commitments Bolsonaro made after assuming office.
Given Brazil’s commitment to halt deforestation by 2028 and the actions of major food firms like JBS, the nation may be planting the seeds for a more sustainable and prosperous agriculture sector.