How the Collapse of the Beef Sector in Post-Soviet Russia Displaced Competition for Ecosystem Services to the Brazilian Amazon

Abstract

The collapse of the Russian livestock sector triggered widespread agricultural land abandonment in post-Soviet Russia. The beef industry declined in particular, and consequently, Russia became heavily dependent on beef imports, from Europe in the 1990s and from Brazil after 2002. Therefore, Russian demand substantially contributed to the growth of the Brazilian beef sector and fostered widespread agricultural land expansion and deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. The beef trade from Brazil to Russia was associated with substantial environmental costs in terms of carbon emissions and loss of biodiversity. While the abandoned agricultural land in Russia has become an important terrestrial carbon sink that would be largely diminished by re-cultivation, we argue that increasing agricultural output through re-cultivation or the expansion of grazing within Russia may be desirable from a global perspective, if the high environmental costs of production elsewhere are taken into account.