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

这个博士论文研究项目将研究小农流离失所的社会和环境影响的机械化大豆种植在亚马逊盆地中部的一个重要的农业前沿。 机械化大豆种植最近已经向亚马逊盆地蔓延，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使用变化造成的森林砍伐。因此，人们对大豆扩张的福利影响或更局部和细微的土地变化结果，特别是与小农流离失所有关的结果知之甚少。 博士生将专注于社会和环境进程所产生的这种流离失所在亚马逊中部附近的城市桑塔雷姆。 他将进行研究，试图描述发生这种流离失所的情况，例如土地是以公平的市场价格出售的，还是通过胁迫在没有适当补偿的情况下转让的。 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，他将研究从小农向大豆利益转移的原始和次生雨林的转化，并将研究因小农从大豆整合地区迁入而造成的新边界上的森林砍伐。 研究方法将包括对小农户进行调查，以描述土地转让过程，确定他们在土地转让给大豆利益时对目的地的选择，以及分析遥感图像以确定土地变化的影响，本项目将探讨社会进程和涉及多种因素的复杂相互作用及其随后对亚马逊地貌的影响。 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一种侧重于土地管理者孤立行动的范式所支配。 该项目将有助于扩大这一范例，展示如何多个土地变化的结果发生在出售的财产和新获得的控股可以导致从一个单一的土地销售，它可以描述土地变化如何发生作为一个结果的多个代理人和社会进程的权力关系的影响。 项目结果应该具有政策意义，因为人们对大豆机械化的福利影响，特别是对小农的影响知之甚少。 该项目产生的信息应有助于关于如何平衡亚马逊地区的发展与环境的政策辩论。 作为博士论文研究改进奖，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.