Painel brasileiro da COP 26 destaca avanços em práticas agrícolas que preservam o meio ambiente sem abrir mão da produtividade.
Brazilian panel at COP26 highlights advances in agricultural practices that preserve the environment without compromising productivity. Brazilian researchers and public managers took to Scotland the experience of projects that optimized the use of the land, at the same time that potentialized the agricultural activity. The objective is to take advantage of the 26th edition of the Conference of the Parties, in Glasgow, to show that Brazil is an agro-environmental powerhouse. Without the innovations, the country would need three times more areas for agriculture and livestock than it currently uses.
“Science and technology have helped us save a lot of land in recent years. In the soy agricultural chain alone, we have saved the equivalent of the territories of Ireland and Italy combined”, highlighted the president of the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa), Celso Moretti, during the panel “Sustainable Agriculture as a Pathway to Environmental Preservation: the land-saving effect”, broadcast simultaneously from stands in Scotland and Brazil.
In the global context, the managers recalled that until the 1970’s Brazilian agriculture was focused on coffee and sugar cane production, concentrated in the South and Southeast regions, with difficulties in producing fertilizers and facing rural poverty. In the 1990s and 2000s, research, science, and public policies enabled advances in competitiveness and sustainability, preparing producers for the horizons of multifunctionality and bioeconomy, trends around the world.
The executive director of Research and Development at Embrapa, Guy Capdeville, says that one of the great challenges faced by Brazilian producers was climate. Like other developing countries, the country is in the the tropics and has large areas with acidic soils, such as the Cerrado biome. However, in five decades, investments in technology have helped agribusiness expand its activities throughout the country.
“Scientific research has enabled us to have an aggressive, powerful and enterprising agriculture sector, capable of transforming acidic and poor soils into fertile soils. We have tropicalized the cultivation of corn and wheat. We have developed technologies that can be exported to several countries, mainly to African countries”, emphasized Capdeville, who called attention to Embrapa’s role in these advances. The public company has 43 research centers and 8,000 employees, around 2,000 of whom are researchers.
SAVIND LANDS
Among the so-called “land-saving” technologies developed by Embrapa are the integration of crop, livestock and forest, direct planting in straw and the production of phosphorus-releasing bacteria (natural fertilizer). The company’s technicians also oriented the farmers to adopt practices to implement carbon neutral cattle raising, based on planting to offset the carbon emissions generated by the activity.
Climate risk zoning and soil improvement programs contributed to reduce the extension of agricultural areas used, as well as genetic improvement, pasture recovery and disease control. According to Embrapa, from 2004 to 2019, the area occupied by livestock increased from 204 million to 213 million hectares. Without technology, this number would be almost three times larger.
In the case of soy, science and technology saved about 71 million hectares.
The industry produces 250 million tonnes on 65 million hectares, an average yield of 3,200 kilograms per hectare. In the fruit-growing sector, productivity between the 1990s and 2018 increased by 64 percent, with a land-saving effect of 1 million hectares.
Among the technologies applied are increased integrated management, planting densification, water management, and pest control. They have made it possible, for example, for 30% of all the certified cotton in the world to be Brazilian, even though the country’s production corresponds to only 10% of world production.
LIVING CERRADO
“The rural producer is feeding the future. And Brazil has an important role to play in supporting sustainable development in the world”, defends the technical advisor of the Technical and Managerial Assistance Board of the National Rural Learning Service (SENAR), Rafael Diego Costa.
He presented, at COP26, the ABC Cerrado project, which supported farmers who live in this biome to use new technologies in addition to traditional methods. Around 7,800 rural producers have participated in the training activities. In three years, the project managed to expand the food supply, diversify income generation, and promote the conservation of the biome in the region.
Cerrado was also the focus of the Sustainable Rural Program of the Brazilian Institute for Development and Sustainability (IABS), carried out in partnership with the federal government, the World Bank, and the British government fund. Around 40,000 producers and 42 social-productive organizations were benefited with technical assistance and rural extension.
Encouraging the creation of associations was one of the pillars of the program. The actions resulted in a sevenfold increase in productivity and in the reconversion of degraded areas. According to the CEO of the Brazilian Institute for Development and Sustainability (IABS), Luís Tadeu Assad, at the beginning of the project only 17% of the farmers adopted innovative practices. At the end of the training activities, 91% of them expressed interest in continuing to apply new technologies.
“All this data shows that we are a sustainable agricultural power. Investment in science and technology is essential”, considers the assistant secretary of the Innovation, Rural Development and Innovation Secretariat at the Brazilian Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply, Cleber Soares. “There is no point in having science and technology if they don’t get to the farmer. That is why we have adopted concrete actions. We are certain that decarbonizing agriculture will contribute to the future of humankind.”
