Massive soybean expansion in South America since 2000 and implications for conservation

Song, Xiao-Peng; Hansen, Matthew C.; Potapov, Peter; Adusei, Bernard; Pickering, Jeffrey; Adami, Marcos; Lima, André; Zalles, Viviana; Stehman, Stephen V.; Bella, Carlos Marcelo Di; Conde, María C.; Copati, E. J.; Fernandes, Lucas Barbosa; Hernández-Serna, Andrés; Jantz, Samuel M.; Pickens, Amy; Turubanova, Svetlana; Tyukavina, Alexandra

doi:10.1038/s41893-021-00729-z

Cited by 244 publications

(147 citation statements)

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“…Previous studies have shown that soybean production plays an important role in the economic development of soybean producing regions 31 , 32 , 49 , although with varying effects according to the region considered. For instance, soybean production exhibited a positive effect on socioeconomic metrics such as the Gini coefficient for income in the new agricultural frontier of the Amazon biome and MATOPIBA (northeast region within the Cerrado biome 49 ), while in Mato Grosso no such effect was found 32 .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The soybean production of a given year requires previous years of preparation, which involves soil preparation, land-use and land-cover (LULC) changes, access to credit and financial resources, labor, thereby a set of situations to favor its success 27 , 28 , 33 . However, after the crop starts developing in a given area and year, other dynamics are expected to occur as a consequence, which may lead to different socioeconomic and environmental outcomes 31 . Given Tobler’s first law of geography 51 we hypothesized that the effects of the soybean production in a region will influence neighboring areas through path dependencies.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Previous studies have addressed indirect land use change by taking pixel-based approaches to demonstrate the patterns in which soybean replace pastureland, while leading to the expansion of pastureland in forested areas 30 , 31 ; or how soybean production promotes economic benefits at varying geographical levels 29 , 32 . However, this study addresses two crucial components of complex metacoupled systems.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Socioeconomic and environmental effects of soybean production in metacoupled systems

Silva

Viña

Moran

et al. 2021

Sci Rep

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Human–environment interactions within and across borders are now more influential than ever, posing unprecedented sustainability challenges. The framework of metacoupling (interactions within and across adjacent and distant coupled human–environment systems) provides a useful tool to evaluate them at diverse temporal and spatial scales. While most metacoupling studies have so far addressed the impacts of distant interactions (telecouplings), few have addressed the complementary and interdependent effects of the interactions within coupled systems (intracouplings) and between adjacent systems (pericouplings). Using the production and trade of a major commodity (soybean) as a demonstration, this paper empirically evaluates the complex effects on deforestation and economic growth across a globally important soybean producing region (Mato Grosso in Brazil). Although this region is influenced by a strong telecoupling process (i.e., soybean trade with national and international markets), intracouplings pose significant effects on deforestation and economic growth within focal municipalities. Furthermore, it generates pericoupling effects (e.g., deforestation) on adjacent municipalities, which precede economic benefits on adjacent systems, and may occur during and after the soybean production takes place. These results show that while economic benefits of the production of agricultural commodities for global markets tend to be localized, their environmental costs tend to be spatially widespread. As deforestation also occurred in adjacent areas beyond focal areas with economic development, this study has significant implications for sustainability in an increasingly metacoupled world.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Socioeconomic and environmental effects of soybean production in metacoupled systems

Silva

Viña

Moran

et al. 2021

Sci Rep

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“…These contributions typically use supply side models at the national level and downscale national trade or production data at the locallevel. Our approach has several advantages: it is less data-demanding 1 ; it is agnostic in terms of scale of agricultural production contrary to contributions based on spatial attribution or classifications methods [10,28] that oppose large scale commodity driven deforestation to shifting agriculture 2 ; it uses a sample based on forested areas at the beginning of the study period, rather than deforested areas at the end of the period, which facilitates causal interpretation; and it does not suffer from leakage effects since it is not limited to a single crop or geography [35].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Crop Prices and Deforestation in the Tropics

Berman

Couttenier

Leblois

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Global food demand is rising, pushed by growing world population and dietary changes in developing countries. This encourages farmers to increase crop production which, in turn, increases worldwide demand for agricultural land and the pressure on tropical forests. With a possible doubling of world food demand by 2050, this pressure is not likely to decrease in the next decades. While the impact of food demand on deforestation has been pushed forward in the medias, rigorous evidence using large-N data estimating the causal impact of crop price variations on deforestation remains scarce. Here, we quantify this impact over the twenty first century using high resolution annual forest loss data across the tropics, combined with information about crop-specific agricultural suitability and annual international commodity prices. We find a sizeable impact of price variations on deforestation: crop price variations are estimated to have contributed to 35% of the total predicted deforestation in the tropics over the period 2001-2018. We also highlight that the degree of openness to international trade and level of economic development are first-order local characteristics to explain the magnitude of the impact of crop prices on deforestation.

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“…It includes replacement of family farming, secondary vegetation, and pasture by monoculture. Areas of primary forest were advanced, thus increasing deforestation (Song et al 2021;Coelho 2009).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rural landscapes and agrarian spaces under soybean expansion dynamics: a case study of the Santarém region, Brazilian Amazonia

et al. 2021

Self Cite

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Following the boom of soybean production from 2000 to 2006 in the Santarém region of the Brazilian Amazon, the mechanized agricultural area remained stable, unlike other regions. Deforestation was controlled, but this initial expansion led to the restructuring of the agrarian space in the region. Given this scenario, we aimed to understand the mechanized agricultural expansion effects in the region by comparing the periods 1999–2007 and 2007–2015. Our hypothesis was that it impacted heterogeneous actors and land tenure categories. We combined multi-temporal land change maps derived from remote sensing to land tenure information to evaluate how land change transitions differed over time, both in public (traditional and sustainable use official settlements) and private areas. In private areas, we observed a 12% reduction in forest cover in 1999–2007 and a 2.5% reduction in 2007–2015. In sustainable use settlements, forest loss was only 3% and 2% in each period, respectively. Mechanized agriculture occupied areas of family farming (42%), secondary vegetation (20%), pasture (20%), and forest areas (18%). Family farming lost most of the area to other uses. Within settlements, the area of family farming increased by 50% at the expense of the forest area. We conclude that the rise and fall of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon hide multiple social and territorial processes. Understanding such dynamics is critical for establishing measures toward a sustainable future.

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Massive soybean expansion in South America since 2000 and implications for conservation

Cited by 244 publications

References 50 publications

Socioeconomic and environmental effects of soybean production in metacoupled systems

Socioeconomic and environmental effects of soybean production in metacoupled systems

Crop Prices and Deforestation in the Tropics

Rural landscapes and agrarian spaces under soybean expansion dynamics: a case study of the Santarém region, Brazilian Amazonia

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