Where is sugarcane cropping expanding in the brazilian cerrado, and why? A case study

Abstract

Sugarcane growing area in Brazil sharply expanded between 2000 and 2010 due to the increasing world demand for sugar and ethanol. Since this expansion of sugarcane is said to occur in areas covered by degraded pastures, it is likely not threatening the environment or food production. In order to verify this assumption, we investigate at farm and field levels which types of land use sugarcane cropping replaced between 2005 and 2010 and the reasons for farmers shifting or not shifting to sugarcane, as a case study in two counties in the state of Goiás. Within the studied period, sugarcane cropping expansion was related to large farms, lower risk perceived by farmers, and higher profitability compared with soybean and beef cattle-raising. For smallholders, particularly dairy farmers, the need to comply with the set-aside rules under Brazilian Forest Code (Código Florestal Brasileiro) made a shift to sugarcane less attractive, as it would have forced them to reduce farm cultivable area, with loss of incomes. From 30,408 ha under sugarcane surveyed, 45.7% had used to be pastures, 31% had previously been pastures rotated with soybean and maize, and 23.3% had been cropped exclusively with soybean or maize.

Varied frequencies of resistance alleles to Cry1Ab and Cry1Ac among Brazilian populations of the sugarcane borer, Diatraea saccharalis (F.)

“…A recent survey showed that both maize and sugarcane planting areas in GO and MS have increased since 2008 (Table S5). The new agricultural lands exploited in the two states have been used for planting both maize and sugarcane; 19,52 and thus, switching crops between maize and sugarcane within growers should have been limited. By contrast, in the same period, the annual maize planting area in SP has decreased by 4% (Table S5), 51 whereas the sugarcane area in SP has increased by 16%, suggesting that there has been a significant land switching from maize to sugarcane in SP.…”

New Forms of Land Grabbing Due to the Bioeconomy: The Case of Brazil

“…So, in any event, land productivity has been an important driver of land use change. Moreover, crop yield can help with assessing the widespread claim that the development of export-led farmland in Brazil has not been taking over any additional land, but just overriding unproductive pasture land [62,72,75,91]. Therefore, the sprawl of sugarcane within the country is supposed to result from a combination of cropland expansion and productivity increase [91].…”

“…In colonial times (the 16th and 17th centuries) and in the first years of the Proálcool strategy, sugarcane crops were concentrated in the northeast and southeast regions of Brazil. Conversely, the latest sugarcane expansion, between 2000 and 2010, sprawled over the Cerrado ecological biome, in the central-western region of Brazil [62,65,75]. Cerrado is a savannah-type vegetation, whose 204 Mha, nearly one-quarter of the Brazilian territory [76], are dominated by lowland.…”

Sugarcane: an unexpected habitat for black yeasts in Chaetothyriales

“…Metagenomic data have successfully been applied in the family Herpotrichiellaceae in Brazilian sugarcane (Souza et al 2016 ). Molecular markers were shown to be effective in demonstrating the environmental presence of agents of chromoblastomycosis and phaeohyphomycosis (Costa et al 2020 ). The present study aims to analyze the prevalence of human-opportunistic members of the family Herpotrichiellaceae in sugarcane plants through combined in silico and isolation methods.…”