{"id":3891,"date":"2023-03-02T10:34:20","date_gmt":"2023-03-02T13:34:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/csrio.usuarios.rdc.puc-rio.br\/?p=3891"},"modified":"2023-03-02T11:08:54","modified_gmt":"2023-03-02T14:08:54","slug":"o-cerrado-visto-de-um-4x4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/csrio.usuarios.rdc.puc-rio.br\/en\/noticias\/o-cerrado-visto-de-um-4x4\/","title":{"rendered":"The cerrado seen from a 4-wheel"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Article originally published by C\u00edntia Borges on the Land Innovation Fund website<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

What drives farmers in one of Brazil’s most productive agricultural regions to make decisions about land use? And what are the decisive factors when they choose to expand their crops or voluntarily conserve an area of native vegetation on their property? Entitled “Behavioral sciences applied to the sustainable soy chain”, the project coordinated by the International Institute for Sustainability (IIS) and carried out in partnership with the Center for Conservation Sciences and Sustainability (CSRio) at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio), with support from the Land Innovation Fund, set out to hear from farmers in the Matopiba agricultural frontier to understand the criteria they use to adopt good agricultural practices in the field.<\/p>\n

The first stage of the project is already complete. Researcher Fernanda Gomes and field assistant Wallas Calazans explored more than 15 thousand km2 in a 4-wheel-drive vehicle through the Cerrado biome areas of the four Brazilian states \u2013 Maranh\u00e3o, Tocantins, Piau\u00ed, and Bahia, which form the acronym Matopiba \u2013 to interview 60 farmers in the region. The data will be the basis for an unprecedented behavioral science study to map out financial incentives and public policies that interact with the concerns, needs, and challenges of farmers in the agricultural frontier that is making the greatest encroachment into Brazil\u2019s remaining areas of native vegetation. The results of their analysis will be published by mid-2023.<\/p>\n

They used data and maps from the Brazilian Foundation for Sustainable Development (FBDS), the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), the MAPBIOMAS project and Agrosat\u00e9lite to map out, identify and prioritize field visits among the region\u2019s 337 municipalities, based on three cut-off criteria:\u00a0 (a) surplus legal reserve areas available per municipality; (b) conversion rates of natural cover to anthropic uses in the last five years; and (c) soil and climate characteristics affecting the suitability for soy farming in the region.<\/p>\n

The field work was done in three trips, organized by region. In the first, in September, the researchers left Barreiras, in Bahia, and went halfway across the state of Piau\u00ed, from where they returned to western Bahia. In the second trip, in October, Fernanda and Wallas visited the north and central region of Maranh\u00e3o, where they talked to soy growers, as well as to cattle ranchers and small farmers cultivating a variety of crops, in a region with a surplus of native vegetation, and very suitable for soy cultivation. The third trip, in November and December 2022, focused on Tocantins, with side trips to Bahia and southern Maranh\u00e3o.<\/p>\n

Their initial planning was not enough, however, to locate and interview 60 farmers in the region.\u00a0 “We tried to contact people we knew or who had been suggested by others, but we couldn’t schedule the visits in time. Sometimes they were out in the field, or else the owner wasn’t on the farm,” explains Fernanda. “So we changed our approach. We mapped by satellite where the soy plantations are located, within our target municipalities, and started knocking on their doors, one by one. The difficulty was finding the owner, who was often in town or on another farm. But when we did, it was rare for someone to refuse to talk to us,” she adds.<\/p>\n

GETTING THERE:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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