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Significance Livestock supply chains account for 14.5% of global greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions. There is a consensus that approaches that improve cattle productivity while enhancing carbon sequestration can contribute to the multiple goals of improving ranchers’ livelihoods and mitigating climate change. Identifying policies that simultaneously increase productivity and sequestration is therefore critical to promote sustainable growth in the livestock sector. This paper documents the impact of training and technical assistance on pasture restoration and productivity in Brazil. We found that providing technical assistance to previously trained producers promoted pasture restoration, induced farmers to use more inputs, helped them improve their practices, and increased productivity and carbon sequestration. These findings highlight the importance of providing customized information to ranchers to help them sustainably intensify.

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This paper examines the impact of changes in agricultural land use on deforestation at the local level in the Tapajós Basin in the Brazilian Amazon. It uses exogenous variation in crop-to-beef relative prices to investigate the effects of pasture-to-cropland conversion on deforestation. The findings indicate that increases in crop-to-beef relative prices increase the rate of pasture-to-cropland conversion and reduce the rate of deforestation. The magnitude of the effects implies that land conversion reduced deforestation at the local level by 5,300 square kilometers from 2002 to 2012. This reduction is the equivalent of almost 15 per cent of the total deforestation observed in the region during this period. These results are consistent with a land use model in which cattle ranching and crop cultivation have different input-intensities and there is imperfect mobility of productive factors between municipalities. This model highlights the fact that changes in relative prices affect deforestation through its effect on input prices.