The Cattle Crisis - Brazil

The cattle industry cannot keep up with the rising, global demand for quality produce. It is a matter of production inefficiency: the means cannot keep pace and profit at the same time. However, Brazil, among other major suppliers, cannot afford falling behind said pace, hence government subsidies. This becomes a problem for the subsistent locals when they can no longer compete with subsidized imports, an issue of free trade arises.

The practice is subsidized because it is inefficient, with the expense of capital secondary to the expense of the environment:

Cattle ranching is the primary driver of deforestation in Earth's largest rainforest, the Brazilian Amazon.¹

The research shows that more than 38,600 square miles has been cleared for pasture since 1996, bringing the total area occupied by cattle ranches in the Brazilian Amazon to 214,000 square miles, an area larger than France.²

Environmental issues of deforestation aside, it is a matter of inefficient and unsustainable land usage:

…the soil that is cleared in slash and burn is left infertile, the nutrients in the soil are quickly absorbed by surrounding organisms. The farmers must move on sometimes to other areas and repeat this process and worthy land and trees become scarce. For farmers in places like Brazil, slash and burn methods are the only way to effectively clear land of parasites and unwanted organisms; chemical means contaminate water and soil and farmers continue to turn to slashing and burning.³

Reasons why the cattle industry thrives in Brazil:

INTEREST RATES—Rainforest lands are often used for land speculation purposes. When real pasture land prices exceed real forest land prices, land clearing is a good hedge against inflation. At times of high inflation, the appreciation of cattle prices and the stream of services (milk) they provide may outpace the interest rate earned on money left in the bank.

LAND TENURE LAWS—In Brazil, colonists and developers can gain title to Amazon lands by simply clearing forest and placing a few head of cattle on the land. As an additional benefit, cattle are a low-risk investment relative to cash crops which are subject to wild price swings and pest infestations. Essentially cattle are a vehicle for land ownership in the Amazon.⁴

Brazil has become the world’s largest exporter of beef, and a major supplier of leather. The demand is global: beef to fast food chains expanding internationally and leather to global brands like Adidas, Nike, Reebok, and Timberland.

Greenpeace Forest Campaigner Lindsey Allen: “To be true climate leaders, Nike, Adidas, Timberland and other brands must help protect the Amazon and our climate by refusing to buy leather from deforestation. In the fight against climate change, every step counts.”⁵

The problem is that Brazil’s economy depends heavily on its Amazon exploits:

Brazilian deforestation is strongly correlated to the economic health of the country: the decline in deforestation from 1988-1991 nicely matched the economic slowdown during the same period, while the rocketing rate of deforestation from 1993-1998 paralleled Brazil's period of rapid economic growth.⁶

Therefore, any solution must take this economy into consideration. According to Roberto Smeraldi, (Amigos da Terra, Activist group) one such solution “involves improving the productivity of cattle ranching, thereby allowing forest to recover without sacrificing jobs or income.”⁷ Increasing productivity would allow for a reduction in pasture size.

There are some approaches worth considering, though none solely practicable as of yet.

One possibility is to condition cattle into grazing sustainable alternatives: here is research into the conditioning process and a proposition of snakeweed as the substitute, http://jas.fass.org/cgi/content/full/82/10/3100.

Also potentially an option is turning to genetics technology, which has already involved itself in the cattle industry: improving the Brazilian breed for ‘mass production’ through in vitro fertilization and cloning. Changing grazing habits and needs by breed and genetic modification is the concept, perhaps using miniature breeds and their high density capacity for some direction. Of course, miniature-breed ranching using rotational grazing systems already exist sustainably, but only as an option for a subsistence setting; dispersing the industry is a global solution, but not viable from Brazil’s economic perspective.

The bottom line is that as industry develops, overconcentration becomes not just an environmental issue, but an urban issue in poor land usage. The optimal solution would maximize production efficiency and minimize resource waste.

-Nathan Tung

Sources:

· ¹ Butler, Rhett. "Beef drives 80% of Amazon deforestation,” mongabay.com (2009), http://news.mongabay.com/2009/0129-brazil.html. (accessed November 1, 2009).

· ^2,4,6 Butler, Rhett. "Amazon Destruction: Why is the rainforest being destroyed in Brazil?;” The Amazon (2009), http://rainforests.mongabay.com/amazon/amazon_destruction.html. (accessed November 1, 2009).

· ³ Stock, Jocelyn. "The Choice: Doomsday or Arbor Day," http://www.umich.edu/~gs265/society/deforestation.htm (accessed November 1, 2009).

· ⁵ Beltra, Daniel. "Top name brands implicated in Amazon destruction,” Greenpeace (2009), http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/news/slaughtering-the-amazon. (accessed November 1, 2009).

· ⁷ Butler, Rhett. "Activists target Brazil's largest driver of deforestation: cattle ranching,” mongabay.com (2009), http://news.mongabay.com/2009/0908-smeraldi.html. (accessed November 1, 2009).

· Consulate General of Brazil. “Technology and Tailored Cows in Brazil” http://www.brazilianconsulate.org.hk/docs/7-Technology%20and%20Tailored%20Cows%20in%20Brazil.pdf (accessed November 1, 2009).

· Greenpeace Brazil. “Amazon Cattle Footprint,” Greenpeace (2009), http://www.greenpeace.org/raw/content/international/press/reports/amazon-cattle-footprint-mato.pdf (accessed November 1, 2009).

· Journal of Animal Breeding & Genetics; Apr2006, Vol. 123 Issue 2, p97-104, 8p, 9 charts

Image Sources:

· Butler, Rhett. "Amazon Destruction: Why is the rainforest being destroyed in Brazil?;” The Amazon (2009), http://rainforests.mongabay.com/amazon/amazon_destruction.html. (accessed November 1, 2009).

· Greenpeace Brazil. “Amazon Cattle Footprint,” Greenpeace (2009), http://www.greenpeace.org/raw/content/international/press/reports/amazon-cattle-footprint-mato.pdf (accessed November 1, 2009).