Sergio Leitão: Unknowingly, Brazilian taxpayers finance environmental setback

The world’s largest beef exporter, owner of the largest herd on the planet, Brazil returned R$ 123 billion to ranchers, between 2008 and 2017, in the form of exemptions, subsidized credit and debt forgiveness, which is equivalent to almost 80 % of what the industry pays in taxes annually.

The government does not separate the modern producers from the backward, and cattle raised on deforestation sabotage the country’s commitments to shift its “environmental footprint” towards less carbon emissions and greater forest conservation. It is a harmful practice, even for the interests of landowners who invest in increased productivity and move away from the traditional model of expanding production by increasing the occupied area.

Entrepreneurs with more modern practices face unfair competition from agriculture based on predatory occupation of the Amazon.

There is no doubt that it is to make the herd pass that, in large part, Brazil destroys the forest. A recent study by Imazon shows that four out of ten heads of cattle in the country are in the Amazon, in an outdated rearing system and generator of gases that cause climate change.

The technical literature confirms the relationship between deforestation and land use by livestock. Livestock, according to a study by the Choices Institute, is responsible for 73%, on average, of the gas emissions that cause climate change associated with the destruction of the planet’s forests.

In the Matopiba region, on the agricultural exploitation frontier between Mato Grosso, Tocantins, Piauí and Bahia, cattle raising is the cause of 39% of these emissions. Brazil threatens to get stuck in these numbers, when it should be looking for greater value for its exported products, investing in ways to meet the new demands of consumers who, as already warned in the European Union, tend to create blocks against products from deforestation areas.

Imazon calculations show that 90% of the deforested area in the Amazon is occupied by pastures.

Confronting this advance in cattle ranching based on deforestation is an unavoidable measure to prevent international markets from creating barriers to the export of Brazilian meat production.

A comparison, to give an idea of ​​how backward cattle raising also deteriorates the country’s reliability in terms of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and deforestation: in the country, on average, the production and sale of each kilogram of beef results in the equivalent the emission of 78 kilos of CO2 into the atmosphere. In Amazonas, the conversion of native forest to pasture causes CO2 emissions equivalent to 713 kg per kilo of meat produced. In Roraima, these emissions are even higher, at 782 kg.

These results are, of course, a liability that Brazil should not carry, much less stimulate with public money. After all, according to the calculation of the Minister of Agriculture, Tereza Cristina, “in Brazil, there are more than 90 million hectares of degraded pastures and a good part of this can be incorporated into agriculture without messing with anything”. No messing with anything, in this case, clearly means: no more deforesting.

And she’s right; the country can continue its role as the world’s largest supplier of grain and meat, without increasing damage to some of the most important biomes in the world. But despite this, the Cerrado and the Amazon are under threat; and, with them, the image of Brazil and its exports, in a world that is increasingly aware of threats to biodiversity and efforts to halt climate change.

The agreement to reduce methane emissions, signed at the Climate Conference in Glasgow, with support from Brazil, strengthens Embrapa’s initiatives, such as research for the low-carbon meat brand, which can benefit from external financing as long as the country regain credibility lost with the dismantling of environmental inspection in recent years.

Funding for the beef chain should be channeled to strengthen official programs and measures under the responsibility of conscientious entrepreneurs that increase productivity, stop the destruction of forests and recover deforested areas.

It is necessary to align the Harvest Plans with modernity. That the lines of financing for agriculture be closed to those who deforest. And that support for producers –whether large or small– is clearly conditioned to practices capable of positioning Brazil among the countries that meet the demands of consumers and investors for respecting environmental, sustainable and governance criteria.

The role of world supplier of agricultural commodities cannot stop Brazil in the past and miss the opportunity to increase the added value of exports in the sector, with more demanding markets.

Much less, to take advantage of scarce resources collected from society to stimulate the retrogression. Financing only for those who do not deforest.