Brazilian agriculture and its sustainability

Abstract

Brazil has emerged in this century as a powerhouse, developing a high productivity tropical agriculture, and today is one of the key players in the global food system. However, such increase of Brazilian agriculture was not without costs. One of the most important consequences was the loss of original vegetation and all the ecosystem services linked to this loss. Most of the Atlantic Forest was converted in urban or agricultural areas; approximately half of the Cerrado was also already converted, and more than 15 % of the Amazon forest was also lost. Coupled with loss of vegetation there is also environmental problems linked to agricultural practices such as: Burning and heavy use of pesticides, and to a lesser extent of mineral fertilizers. However, the decoupling of agriculture production and deforestation observed in several regions of the country give us hope that in the future agriculture could advance without further vegetation loss. This mean that intensification will take place, and such has to be conducted under the umbrella of what is called "sustainable agriculture", which in turn is a series of practices aimed to give to an agroecosystem more complexity in order to mimic natural ecosystems. Among these practices several of them have already been adopted in large scale in the country, especially no-till, crop rotation, and lately crop-livestock systems. If Brazil succeeds in overcoming this challenge, it will not only benefit itself, but also other tropical countries that are pursuing such sustainability and, ultimately the entire world, given Brazil's importance in the global food system.