IRFP: Agroecology in Practice: Agrarian Reform, Ecological Sustainability and Social Equality in Brazil

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The International Research Fellowship Program enables U.S. scientists and engineers to conduct nine to twenty-four months of research abroad. The program's awards provide opportunities for joint research, and the use of unique or complementary facilities, expertise and experimental conditions abroad.This award will support a fifteen-month research fellowship by Dr. Jennifer Gardner to work with Dr. Jose Scaramuzza at the Federal University of Mato Grosso, Brazil.There is growing recognition of agriculture's contribution to global environmental degradation, but also greater understanding of the potential for agroecological management to improve the sustainability of food production. This mixed-methods research project draws on the disciplines of agroecology and political ecology to measure the environmental, agricultural, and social outcomes of smallholder agrarian reform settlements in the Cerrado region of Brazil. This extensive biome is a dynamic site of contention over very different models of agricultural production. The Cerrado has become a center for industrial agriculture in recent decades, particularly soybean production, threatening its native grassland and forest ecosystems. Yet grassroots social movements, such as O Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST -- the Rural Landless Workers' Movement), have also become important actors in the region, pressuring the government for more progressive distribution of land ownership and establishing land reform settlements. These settlements represent a growing countertrend that can potentially inform widespread development of food systems that are ecologically sustainable and socially just. Though the MST's national leadership promotes production based on the science of agroecology, adoption of these practices on MST farms is complex and variable. This project is a comparative analysis of several land reform settlements in Mato Grosso combining data from a farmer survey, qualitative interviews, on-farm sampling of plants and soils, and secondary data analysis. The primary objectives are to understand: Within and among MST settlements in Mato Grosso, who is farming using agroecological practices and why? How do agroecological practices emerge on MST settlement farms and how are they sustained? And, what effects do these farming systems have on ecological efficiency? Efficiency is being assessed using standard metrics from ecosystem ecology including productivity per unit area, energy inputs, and nutrient mass balances for nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium. This research will increase knowledge of the potential for the alternative farming systems of agrarian reform settlements to produce food sustainably in the ecologically-threatened Cerrado. This work is advancing interdisciplinary approaches to the study of land use and sustainability and addresses the important question: Under what conditions can these alternative systems be replicated or scaled-up? Finally, through this project, the PI is building institutional ties between the Federal University of Mato Grosso and Cornell University to establish a foundation for future research collaborations.