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Brazilian Agriculture and Its Sustainability

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International Food Law and Policy

Abstract

Brazil has emerged in this century as a powerhouse, developing a high productivity tropical agriculture, and today is one of the key players in the global food system. However, such increase of Brazilian agriculture was not without costs. One of the most important consequences was the loss of original vegetation and all the ecosystem services linked to this loss. Most of the Atlantic Forest was converted in urban or agricultural areas; approximately half of the Cerrado was also already converted, and more than 15 % of the Amazon forest was also lost. Coupled with loss of vegetation there is also environmental problems linked to agricultural practices such as: burning and heavy use of pesticides, and to a lesser extent of mineral fertilizers. However, the decoupling of agriculture production and deforestation observed in several regions of the country give us hope that in the future agriculture could advance without further vegetation loss. This mean that intensification will take place, and such has to be conducted under the umbrella of what is called “sustainable agriculture”, which in turn is a series of practices aimed to give to an agroecosystem more complexity in order to mimic natural ecosystems. Among these practices several of them have already been adopted in large scale in the country, especially no-till, crop rotation, and lately crop-livestock systems. If Brazil succeeds in overcoming this challenge, it will not only benefit itself, but also other tropical countries that are pursuing such sustainability and, ultimately the entire world, given Brazil's importance in the global food system.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    See Gibbs et al. (2010).

  2. 2.

    Ibid.

  3. 3.

    See Rudel et al. (2009).

  4. 4.

    See Martinelli (2012).

  5. 5.

    See Gasques et al. (2004).

  6. 6.

    See Chaddad and Jank (2006) and Barros (2008).

  7. 7.

    See Martinelli et al. (2010) and Lapola et al. (2014).

  8. 8.

    See FAO (2014).

  9. 9.

    See Forest Resources Association—FRA (2010).

  10. 10.

    See da Silva et al. (2005).

  11. 11.

    See Rocha et al. (2004), (Bonan 2008), and Cox and Jeffery (2010).

  12. 12.

    See Neill et al. (1996), Ometto et al. (2005), and Houghton et al. (2009).

  13. 13.

    See Oliveira-Filho and Fontes (2000).

  14. 14.

    See Myers et al. (2000) and Murray-Smith et al. (2009).

  15. 15.

    See Ribeiro et al. (2009).

  16. 16.

    See Morellato and Haddad (2000), Galindo-Leal and Câmara (2003), and Teixeira et al. (2009).

  17. 17.

    See Murray-Smith et al. (2009).

  18. 18.

    See Mittermeier et al. (2005).

  19. 19.

    See Morellato and Haddad (2000) and Scarano (2002).

  20. 20.

    See Kissinger (2014).

  21. 21.

    See Ministry of Environment (2013).

  22. 22.

    See Martinelli et al. (2010).

  23. 23.

    See Martinelli (2012).

  24. 24.

    See Swinton et al. (2007) and Power (2010).

  25. 25.

    See Gallai et al. (2009).

  26. 26.

    See Ribeiro et al. (2009).

  27. 27.

    See Lapola et al. (2014).

  28. 28.

    See Hoorn et al. (2010) and Cheng et al. (2013).

  29. 29.

    See Santos et al. (2009), Hoorn et al. (2010), and Cheng et al. (2013); Sacek (2014).

  30. 30.

    See Hecht et al. (1988).

  31. 31.

    See Nepstad et al. (2014).

  32. 32.

    Ibid.

  33. 33.

    See Ribeiro et al. (2009).

  34. 34.

    See Murray-Smith et al. (2009).

  35. 35.

    See Ribeiro et al. (2009).

  36. 36.

    Ibid.

  37. 37.

    See Ribeiro et al. (2009) and Tabarelli et al. (1999).

  38. 38.

    See Ratter et al. (1997).

  39. 39.

    See Simon et al. (2009).

  40. 40.

    See Mendonça et al. (2008).

  41. 41.

    See Simon et al. (2009).

  42. 42.

    See Sousa et al. (2001).

  43. 43.

    See Sano et al. (2010).

  44. 44.

    See Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (2012).

  45. 45.

    See Sano et al. (2010).

  46. 46.

    See Sousa et al. (2001).

  47. 47.

    See Sano et al. (2010).

  48. 48.

    See Lapola et al. (2014).

  49. 49.

    See Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (2012).

  50. 50.

    See Ribeiro et al. (2009).

  51. 51.

    See Sano et al. (2010) and Lapola et al. (2014).

  52. 52.

    See Lapola et al. (2014).

  53. 53.

    See Nepstad et al. (2009, 2014), Barretto et al. (2013), and Lapola et al. (2014).

  54. 54.

    See Nepstad et al. (2014).

  55. 55.

    Ibid.

  56. 56.

    See Cançado et al. (2006), Goto et al. (2011), Riguera et al. (2011), Tsao et al. (2011), and Prado et al. (2012).

  57. 57.

    See Jacobson et al. (2012).

  58. 58.

    See Arbex et al. (2010).

  59. 59.

    See Barbosa et al. (2012).

  60. 60.

    See Magalhães et al. (2007) and Andrade et al. (2010).

  61. 61.

    See Dourado-Neto et al. (1999), de Oliveira et al. (2000), and Tominaga et al. (2002).

  62. 62.

    See Galdos et al. (2010).

  63. 63.

    See Mello et al. (2014).

  64. 64.

    See Crutzen and Andreae (1990).

  65. 65.

    See Artaxo et al. (2002) and Andreae et al. (2004).

  66. 66.

    See Schafer (2002).

  67. 67.

    See Roberts et al. (2001).

  68. 68.

    See Martins et al. (2009).

  69. 69.

    See Freitas et al. (2005).

  70. 70.

    See Camponogara et al. (2014).

  71. 71.

    See Martinelli (2012).

  72. 72.

    See Martinelli and Filoso (2009).

  73. 73.

    See Hartemink (2008) for a review.

  74. 74.

    See Schiesari and Grillitsch (2011).

  75. 75.

    See Schiesari and Grillitsch (2011).

  76. 76.

    See Schiesari and Grillitsch (2011).

  77. 77.

    See Galloway et al. (2008).

  78. 78.

    See Lapola et al. (2014).

  79. 79.

    See Dirzo and Raven (2003).

  80. 80.

    See Alves et al. (2003).

  81. 81.

    See Alves et al. (2003).

  82. 82.

    See Keating et al. (2010), Godfray et al. (2010), Power (2010), and Phalan et al. (2011).

  83. 83.

    See Tilman et al. (1997) and Scherr and McNeely (2008).

  84. 84.

    See Bayer et al. (2006) and Galdos et al. (2010).

  85. 85.

    See Diekow et al. (2005), Hungria and Vargas (2000), Garcıa-Préchac et al. (2004), and Bernoux et al. (2006).

  86. 86.

    See Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (2012).

  87. 87.

    See Boddey et al. (2010).

  88. 88.

    See Zanatta et al. (2007) and Vieira et al. (2009).

  89. 89.

    See Hungria and Vargas (2000).

  90. 90.

    See Rosolem et al. (2004) and Jantalia et al. (2008).

  91. 91.

    See Carvalho et al. (2009).

  92. 92.

    See Balbinot-Junior et al. (2009).

  93. 93.

    See Carvalho et al. (2010b).

  94. 94.

    See Carvalho et al. (2010a).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. CENA, University of São Paulo, Piracicaba, SP, Brazil

    Luiz Antonio Martinelli, Luciana Della Coletta & Silvia Rafaela Machado Lins

  2. Federal University of Pará, Belém, PA, Brazil

    Silvia Fernanda Mardegan

  3. EMBRAPA Agriculture Informatics, Campinas, SP, Brazil

    Daniel de Castro Victoria

Authors
  1. Luiz Antonio Martinelli
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  2. Luciana Della Coletta
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  3. Silvia Rafaela Machado Lins
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  4. Silvia Fernanda Mardegan
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  5. Daniel de Castro Victoria
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Correspondence to Luiz Antonio Martinelli .

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  1. Food Law International, LLP, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

    Gabriela Steier

  2. Food Law International, LLP, Washington, DC, USA

    Kiran K. Patel

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Martinelli, L.A., Coletta, L.D., Lins, S.R.M., Mardegan, S.F., de Castro Victoria, D. (2016). Brazilian Agriculture and Its Sustainability. In: Steier, G., Patel, K. (eds) International Food Law and Policy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-07542-6_32

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