Soil improvement and mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions for integrated crop–livestock systems: Case study assessment in the Pantanal savanna highland, Brazil

Abstract

Greenhouse gas emissions and climate change has been partially attributed to agricultural expansion by deforestation, while the pressure to assure food, fiber and energy for the future generations leads to the intensification of agricultural systems. The transition to more efficient systems is actually considered an important strategy to reduce deforestation and to spare land for other uses, including the recovery of environmental services and ecohydrological processes in the drainage basin such as carbon sink and water regulation. The Brazilian Federal Program for Low Carbon Agriculture (ABC Program) intends to reduce carbon emissions by stimulating technological processes that neutralize emissions or enhance the sinking of greenhouse gases. A pilot farm has been established to assess an intensive animal-plant farming system that incorporates anaerobic digestion for biogas, power generation and organic fertilizer production. Emergy Synthesis was chosen as a methodological tool to assess and to diagnosis the farm system design. The modified emergy assessment including externalities (greenhouse gas emissions) improves the understanding of integrated crop-livestock systems efficiency in internal recycling of nutrients and power conversion. The adoption of manure treatment in intensified agricultural systems can effectively contribute to enhance environmental and economic performances.

Historical Land-Use Changes in São Gabriel do Oeste at the Upper Taquari River Basin

“…Nutrient recycling and renewable energy are key factors to the future agriculture, as well as agroecosystem integration and soil management to achieve better sustainable performance [33].…”

“…Deforestation can be reduced if the intensification is truly achieved, and arboreal element can be restored to the agroecosystems, as an essential factor for human welfare considering mitigation and adaption to future climate changes [32]. This might be a response to the food security challenge for the next decades and may place rural areas, including smaller farmers, in a new competitive position in the energy and food market [33]. Livestock-crop-wood-fertilizer integration represents, therefore, a suitable agricultural model to the entire Pantanal plateau.…”

“…In addition to the nutrient recycling and consequent lower dependence on external resources, there are new products to incorporate the farm product portfolio and revenue. Nutrient recycling and swine manure management create interesting opportunities to reduce pollution and obtain gains in ecosystem services, GHG emission mitigation, and socioeconomic benefits, particularly if it is considered the eventual evolution of the landscape from large monocrop patches to small integrated livestock-crop-woodfertilizer with more environmental and social services [13,32,33]. Carbon and water ecosystem services related to land-use change in the Taquarizinho River nearby São Gabriel do Oeste were evaluated in [34].…”

Sustainability assessment of water hyacinth fast pyrolysis in the Upper Paraguay River basin, Brazil

“…The Emergy accounting has been employed to assess systems' sustainability for several agro-industrial and biofuel production purposes (Nimmanterdwong et al, 2015;Patrizi et al, 2015;Wu et al, 2015;Buller et al, 2015;Seghetta et al, 2014;Cavalett and Ortega, 2010;Pereira and Ortega, 2010;Coppola et al, 2009;Bastianoni et al, 2008;Cavalett et al, 2006). Two Emergy assessments of fast pyrolysis have already been performed (Singh et al, 2009;Alonso-Pippo et al, 2004) for a laboratorial and a pilot plant, respectively.…”

Chemical attributes of the soil in agroforestry systems subjected to organic fertilizations

“…The increase in the productivity of forest cultures by area unit is the current objective in order to meet the worldwide growing demand for wood (Smitha et al, 2016). However, the conventional agricultural systems with monocultures must undergo transformations into systems that consider associations among agroecosystems (agroforestry systems), since these are sustainable methods for the production of food and forest products (Bonaudo et al, 2014), intending to soften the emission of greenhouse gases and offer improvements to the chemical attributes of the soil (Buller et al, 2015). However, most forest species cultivated have a high capacity to extract nutrients, causing significant impacts to the chemical attributes of the soils (Pelissari et al, 2012), and this high nutrient consumption may be intensified in agroforestry systems due to the introduction of new production components, such as annual grain production cultures.…”