Meio Ambiente

Secretariat for Social Communication of the Presidency of Brazil

The Brazilian Agricultural Research Enterprise (Embrapa) counts on the technique of recovery of pastures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the country. A recently published study points out that the recovery of these areas and the integration of crops with livestock are two available technologies that contribute to solve the problem of emissions reduction and, together, they could represent around 12% of the voluntary commitment made by the Brazilian Government of reducing up to 38.9% of its greenhouse gas emissions by 2020.

According to the institution's researcher, Geraldo Martha, the contribution of these actions would be even greater in practice. "As the clearing of new areas for farming is one of the causes for deforestation in the Amazon and in the Cerrado Biome, the recovery of low-productivity cattle raising areas currently in use will be a fundamental factor to create new spaces for the expansion of food, fibers and biofuels production without the necessity of more deforestation", he explained.

Numbers and results

According to a research carried out by Embrapa, when a low-productivity pasture with a capacity rate of 0.4 head per hectare begins to accommodate five animals in the same area unit, each hectare with this new capacity that is recovered for crop-livestock integration releases another eight units for other uses. Besides contributing to reduce deforestation, the productivity increase by itself translates into benefits for the environment. According to the researcher, the large amount of roots in the soil contributes to an increase in organic matter, which also increments carbon capture from the atmosphere and improves water and nutrient use effectiveness in the system.

Methane

Another major problem of livestock related to greenhouse effect are the methane emissions deriving from the digestion processes of bovine cattle, which is also minimized because of the improved quality of the plant coverage. Studies by Embrapa point out that the emission of this gas by the cattle could drop by half when they are raised in systems with pastures of high availability and nutritive value, such as well-managed crop-livestock integration systems. The good news is that the animal performance increase in pastures, besides reducing the negative environmental impact of cattle-raising, generally increases the entrepreneurship's profits.

According to the Embrapa researcher, Lourival Vilela, who coordinates Embrapa's research studies on crop-livestock integration systems, at least half of Brazilian pastures are already in degradation at some degree. Under such conditions, the soil has generally little fertility and thus smaller productivity, which raises production costs, especially in small properties.

This low-productivity condition of pastures results in loss of organic matter, erosion and thickening of the soil. On the other hand, crop-livestock integration, besides benefiting the environment, allow greater efficiency in the use of fertilizers, reduction of invasive plants and productivity gains both in the crops and in the cattle-raising activity.

Based on information from Embrapa