Doctoral Dissertation Research: Impacts of Mechanized Agriculture on Smallholders and Landscapes in the Central Amazon Basin

这一博士论文研究项目将研究机械化大豆种植对亚马逊盆地中部重要农业前沿的小农户流离失所的社会和环境影响。机械化大豆种植最近悄悄走向亚马逊盆地，人们越来越担心这种扩张对热带雨林的影响。以往的研究一般侧重于环境影响，即通过区域范围内的直接侵蚀和间接土地利用变化而砍伐森林。因此，人们对大豆扩张的福利影响或更本地化和微妙的土地变化结果知之甚少，特别是与小农流离失所相关的结果。这位博士生将专注于桑塔雷姆市附近亚马逊中部这种流离失所所引发的社会和环境过程。他将进行研究，试图描述发生这种转移的情况，例如土地是以公平的市场价值出售，还是在没有足够补偿的情况下通过胁迫转让的。该学生还将研究与中部盆地大豆种植相关的土地变化。为此，他将研究将原生和次生雨林转化为从小农户转移到大豆权益的财产的问题，并将研究小农户从大豆整理地区迁入造成的新领域的森林砍伐情况。研究方法将包括对小农的调查，以描述土地转让的过程，并确定他们在土地转让给大豆利益时的目的地选择，以及分析遥感图像，以确定土地变化的影响。该项目将研究涉及多个代理人的社会过程和复杂互动及其对亚马逊景观的后续影响。该项目将有助于土地变化科学的发展，长期以来，土地变化科学一直被一种专注于土地管理者孤立行动的范式所主导。这个项目将帮助扩展这一范式，展示如何通过一次土地销售产生在已出售物业和新获得的物业上发生的多个土地变化结果，并可以描述土地变化是如何由于多个代理人和受权力关系影响的社会过程而发生的。项目结果应具有政策影响，因为人们对大豆机械化的福利影响知之甚少，特别是对小农而言。该项目产生的信息应有助于就如何平衡亚马逊地区的发展和环境进行政策辩论。作为博士论文研究改进奖，该项目将为有前途的学生建立独立的研究生涯提供支持。

This doctoral dissertation research project will examine the social and environmental implications of smallholder displacement by mechanized soy farming for an important agricultural frontier in the central Amazon Basin. Mechanized soybean farming has recently crept towards the Amazon Basin, and there is growing concern about the consequences of this expansion on the rainforest. Past research generally has focused on environmental impacts, namely deforestation via direct encroachments and indirect land-use change at a regional scale. As a result, less is known about the welfare impacts of soybean expansion or about more localized and nuanced land-change outcomes, particularly those associated with smallholder displacement. The doctoral student will focus on social and environmental processes stemming from such displacements in the central Amazon near the city of Santarem. He will conduct research that seeks to describe the circumstances under which such displacements occurred, such as whether land was sold at fair market value or was transferred without adequate compensation via coercion. The student also will address land changes associated with soybean expansion in the central basin. To this end, he will study the conversion of primary and secondary rainforests on properties transferred from smallholders to soybean interests, and he will examine the deforestation occurring in new frontiers created by the in-migration of smallholders from areas of soybean consolidation. Research methods will include a survey of smallholders in order to describe the process of land transfer and to ascertain their destination choices upon land transfer to soybean interests as well as analyses of remotely sensed imagery to determine land-change impacts.This project will address social processes and complex interactions involving multiple agents and their subsequent impacts on the Amazon landscape. The project will contribute to development of land-change science, which has been long dominated by a paradigm focused on land managers acting in isolation. This project will help expand this paradigm by showing how multiple land-change outcomes occurring on properties sold and on newly acquired holdings can result from a single land sale, and it can describe how land change occurs as a result of multiple agents and social processes impacted by power relations. Project results should have policy implications, because little is known about the welfare effects of soybean mechanization, particularly with respect to smallholders. Information generated by this project should contribute to policy debates regarding ways to balance development and the environment in the Amazon. As a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement award, this project will provide support to enable a promising student to establish an independent research career.