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

本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小农流离失所的社会和环境影响。机械化大豆种植最近已经悄悄进入亚马逊盆地，人们越来越担心这种扩张对雨林的影响。过去的研究一般侧重于环境影响，即在区域范围内通过直接侵占和间接土地利用变化造成的森林砍伐。因此，人们对大豆扩张对福利的影响知之甚少，也不太了解更局部、更细微的土地变化结果，特别是与小农流离失所有关的结果。博士生将专注于圣塔伦市附近亚马逊中部地区的流离失所所产生的社会和环境过程。他将进行研究，设法描述发生这种流离失所的情况，例如土地是否以公平的市场价值出售，或通过强制转让而没有得到充分补偿。该学生还将讨论与中央盆地大豆扩张相关的土地变化。为此目的，他将研究从小农转移到大豆利益的土地上的初级和次级雨林的转变，他还将研究由于小农从大豆巩固区迁入而造成的新边界的森林砍伐情况。研究方法将包括对小农进行调查，以描述土地转让的过程并确定他们在土地转让为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。该项目将解决涉及多个代理的社会过程和复杂的相互作用及其对亚马逊景观的后续影响。该项目将促进土地变化科学的发展，长期以来，土地变化科学一直被侧重于孤立行动的土地管理者的范式所主导。本项目将通过展示单一土地出售如何导致出售的物业和新获得的物业产生多种土地变化结果，并描述受权力关系影响的多种代理人和社会过程如何导致土地变化，从而有助于扩展这一范式。项目结果应具有政策意义，因为对大豆机械化的福利影响，特别是对小农的福利影响所知甚少。该项目产生的信息应有助于有关如何平衡亚马逊地区发展和环境的政策辩论。作为博士论文研究进步奖，该项目将提供支持，使有前途的学生建立一个独立的研究生涯。

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.