Atlantic Forest produces 50% of the food consumed by the Brazilian population

The Atlantic Forest, which is at the same time the most devastated biome in Brazil and one of the main “hotspots” of biodiversity on the planet, produces 50% of the food consumed by the Brazilian population.

With an agricultural area of ​​approximately 70 million hectares, it accounts for 97% of apples, 90% of black beans, 90% of conilon coffee, 63% of eggs, 63% of bananas and 54% of potatoes, among others. It is also from the biome that 30% of non-food plant production, such as fibers, latex and cotton, and 62% of animal heads, cattle, sheep, poultry, swine consumed in the country come out.

Launched by the NGO SOS Mata Atlântica this week at COP27, the analysis was coordinated by researchers Luís Fernando Guedes Pinto, Jean Paul Metzger and Gerd Sparovek and was prepared from the gathering of several studies and secondary data on the land tenure situation, land use and agricultural production in the Atlantic Forest.

“We decided to launch this analysis at the climate conference to draw the world’s attention to the Atlantic Forest and also to draw the attention of Brazil”, explains Guedes Pinto, executive director of SOS Mata Atlântica.

The entity has been seeking not only to internationalize the importance of the biome, especially through the forest restoration agenda, but to bring it closer to people’s daily lives, he explains, now through its relevance to food production.

The biome, which is present in 3,429 municipalities in 17 states and occupies 15% of the national territory, is home to 27% of agricultural land and 40% of rural establishments in Brazil, in landscapes that have been profoundly transformed as a result of economic cycles since the beginning of the Portuguese colonization.

Currently, most of the anthropized area —that is, whose original characteristics have been altered— of the Atlantic Forest is occupied by pastures, which cover 25% of its entire territory.

Since 1985, the degraded pasture area has given way to agriculture and planted forests, but even so, the biome still has about 4 million hectares severely degraded, which corresponds to an area similar to the state of Rio de Janeiro.

Yerba mate, whose leaves were used by the indigenous people to produce a kind of stimulating tea called ka’ay, is the only species native to the Atlantic Forest with significant production —97% of it is still maintained in the biome and concentrated in the region South of the country.

In a recent interview, Clayton Lino, president of the National Council of the Atlantic Forest Biosphere Reserve, stated that more than 450 municipalities have this species among their main sources of income, a direct and indirect chain that generates around 600,000 jobs, similar number to the Brazilian automobile industry.

In addition to agricultural production for direct consumption to feed the Brazilian population, the Atlantic Forest plays a role in the production of commodities for export, accounting for 46% of sugarcane production, 34% of corn production and 32% of soybean production.

“This result is achieved with an area of ​​agricultural use and greenhouse gas emissions comparatively lower than that of the cerrado, which has become the paradigm and reference of national agriculture in recent decades from the cultivation of monocultures on a large scale and on large scales. properties”, highlights Guedes Pinto.

The Atlantic Forest, he points out, emits only 26% of the agricultural sector’s greenhouse gases, as the report also points out.

Small properties are predominant and, aggregating rural settlements, account for 35% of the biome, with Espírito Santo, Santa Catarina and Rio de Janeiro and Paraná registering the lowest rates of inequality in land distribution, below the Brazilian average.

According to Guedes Pinto, in addition to its agricultural potential, the Atlantic Forest has much to contribute to climate solutions and could achieve neutrality of emissions generated by land use in the coming decades by combining the end of deforestation by 2030, forest restoration of 15 million hectares and the promotion of low carbon agriculture.

However, in the first half of 2022, a total of 21,300 hectares of forest, an area equivalent to 117 soccer fields/day, was deforested in the Atlantic Forest, according to data from the Mapbiomas alert system. In addition, the implementation of the Forest Code has not advanced substantially and, in several states, there is excessive use of pesticides.

As with the deforestation of the Amazon, it will be up to the new government to provide answers not only to contain the damage that has worsened in recent years, emphasizes the entity, but also to accelerate the construction of new economic opportunities that combine forest protection, food production, mitigation and climate resilience.

_{The Planeta em Transe project is supported by the Open Society Foundations.}