Problems With Agriculture
Seventy-five percent of Brazil's greenhouse gas emissions are the result of deforestation and changes in land use to pave the way for production of livestock and crops. Brazil's greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture have increased 41 percent between 1990 and 2005. Cattle are a major factor for these emissions. An estimate carried out by Friends of the Earth-Amazonia (Amigos da Terra - Amazônia Brasileira), the Brazilian National Institute for Space Research (INPE), and the University of Brasília concluded fully half of Brazil's greenhouse gas emissions between 2003 and 2008 came from the cattle sector. If all parts of the "cattle chain" had been included, the researchers add, the proportion of greenhouse gases attributable to Brazil's cattle would have been even larger.
Brazil's cattle and soy production are concentrated in the Legal Amazon and Cerrado grasslands regions, and have resulted in considerable biodiversity loss, deforestation, and water pollution. As of 2007, about 74 million cattle, or 40 percent of Brazil's herd, were living in what is known as the "Legal Amazon." Almost a million square km (386,000 sq mi), or nearly half of the Cerrado, have been burned and are now cattle pasture, or are cultivated for soybeans, corn (both primary ingredients in livestock feed), and sugarcane, for ethanol production. According to Brazilian journalist Washington Novaes, "if we consider the viable fragments of the Cerrado, those with at least two continuous hectares (5 acres), only 5 percent of it is left. It's a very severe level of habitat loss." At least one quarter of Brazil's grain is grown in the Cerrado region.
Read more about this topic: Agriculture In Brazil
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