Improving land management in Brazil: A perspective from producers
Improving land management in Brazil: A perspective from producers
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DOI：
10.1016/j.agee.2017.01.043
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发表时间：
2017-03-01
影响因子：
6.6
通讯作者：
Beduschi, Francisco
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Latawiec, Agnieszka E.;Strassburg, Bernardo B. N.;Beduschi, Francisco
许多热带牧场的低生产力是毁林和其他负面环境和社会经济影响的主要驱动因素。在世界第二大肉类生产国巴西，85%的养牛场仍在广阔的牧场系统内，养牛是迄今为止森林砍伐最重要的直接驱动因素。通过提高牧场生产力，有可能在零森林砍伐的情况下扩大巴西农业，但对实际养牛户面临这种转变的挑战和动机的了解仍然很少。为了更好地了解导致或抑制土地管理改善的潜在因素的重要性，我们使用了焦点小组和半结构化访谈（N =250）与巴西亚马逊马托格罗索州的农民。我们发现，大多数受访者（60%）声称采用良好农业规范的主要好处是提高生产力，其次是增加收入（43%）和更好的农场行政管理（34%）。采用改良的草地管理技术与放牧率呈正相关（p < 0.005，r=0.48）。采用改良牧场管理（通常通过轮牧）的农场平均森林覆盖率较低（p < 0.05，r =0.22）。我们发现，劳动力短缺是影响采用改进技术的主要问题（36%），其次是财政限制（18%）。我们还发现，获得技术推广服务的机会不足是一个重大问题，因为目前40%的技术援助是由化肥和其他化学品供应商提供的。据我们所知，这是第一项从参与实施良好农业做法的亚马逊农民的角度系统评估在巴西牧场采用这些做法的障碍和条件的研究。如果要大规模实现可持续土地管理，参与设计技术援助计划、教育和信贷方案的决策者必须考虑这些因素。特别是，缺乏熟练和可用的劳动力与普遍的假设形成了鲜明对比，即为可持续农业提供新的信贷额度将自动带来更好的土地管理。如果不考虑本文所讨论的因素，可能会导致当地植被继续遭到砍伐，现有牧场的环境退化，以及养牛农民普遍贫困的持续存在。这些结果有助于在巴西和其他地方大规模实施可持续土地利用政策。(C)2017 Elsevier B.V.版权所有。
The low productivity of many tropical pasturelands is a major driver of deforestation and other negative environmental and socio-economic impacts. In Brazil, the second biggest meat producer in the world, 85% of cattle farms remain within extensive pasture systems, and cattle farming is by far the most important proximate driver of deforestation. It is possible to expand Brazilian agriculture with zero deforestation through improvements to rangeland productivity yet understanding of the challenges and motivations of the actual cattle farmers in the face of such a transition remains sparse. To better understand the importance of the underlying factors that lead to or inhibit improvements to land management, we used focus groups and semi-structured interviews (N =250) with farmers from the state of Mato Grosso in the Brazilian Amazon. We found that the majority of the respondents (60%) claimed that the principal benefit of adopting good agricultural practices was increased productivity, followed by increased income (43%) and better farm administrative management (34%). The adoption of improved pasture management techniques was positively correlated with stocking rates (p < 0.005, r=0.48). Farms that adopted improved pasture management, most often through rotational grazing had, on average, lower levels of forest cover (p < 0.05, r =0.22). We found that scarcity of labour was the major issue affecting the adoption of improved techniques (36%), followed by financial constraints (18%). We also identified a shortfall in access to technical extension services to be a significant problem because 40% of the technical assistance is currently provided by vendors of fertilizers and other chemicals. To our knowledge, this is the first study to systematically assess the barriers to and the conditions surrounding the adoption of good agricultural practices in Brazilian pasturelands from the perspective of the farmers from the Amazon involved in the implementation of these practices. It is critical that decision-makers involved in the design of technical assistance schemes, education and credit programmes consider these factors if sustainable land management is to be realised at scale. In particular, the lack of skilled and available labour contrasts with the widespread assumption that new credit lines for sustainable agriculture will automatically result in better land, management. A failure to consider factors discussed in this paper may contribute to the continued clearance of native vegetation and the environmental degradation of existing pasturelands, in addition to the persistence of widespread poverty among cattle farmers. These results can assist the large scale implementation of sustainable land use policies in Brazil and elsewhere. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.