Abstract
Agricultural production will play an increasing role in the development of renewable energy sources. Modeling land use changes due to agricultural conversion continues to be a challenge. This chapter contributes by demonstrating an improved methodology to empirically determine elasticities used to compute land use change. It presents an updated land use section of the Brazilian Land Use Model, using secondary economic data, remote sensing information, and improved allocation methodology, especially with extensive margin effects, to better capture multicropping systems, livestock dynamics, and land use dynamics. It shows improved ways for economic and geospatial models to interface with each other, a necessary step in quantifying impacts of dynamic processes. The results of the simulations confirm that agriculture will continue to convert native vegetation, but sugarcane has very little direct impact on natural vegetation due to demand being met through pasture intensification. Also, deforestation rates will decrease compared to those in the past. Finally, policies to ensure compliance with agricultural intensification and guarantees from farmers of compliance with Brazilian forest regulations will be necessary to complement market forces and technological advances in biofuel crop production.
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Notes
- 1.
“Second crop” in this analysis refers to a crop that is double cropped on an existing crop’s area.
- 2.
Grouped Footnotes
The main criteria to divide the regions were agricultural production homogeneity and individualization of biomes with special relevance for conservation.
- 3.
The elasticity matrices can be found in the Appendix.
- 4.
- 5.
Also explained in Nassar et al. (2009) available at http://www.iconebrasil.com.br/arquivos/noticia/1872.pdf.
- 6.
See document EPA-HQ-OAR-2005-0161-0891. Available at: http://www.regulations.gov/search/Regs/home.html#documentDetail?R=09000064809ad1c4.
- 7.
It is important to note that the results presented were simulated in the BLUM in January 2011 considering the expected macroeconomic scenario for the next 10 years (based on IMF World Economic Outlook projections). The BLUM database is constantly being updated (twice a year) and its structure, parameters, and sectors are improved as new databases and observations become available.
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Harfuch, L., Chiodi Bachion, L., Moreira, M.M.R., Nassar, A.M., Carriquiry, M. (2017). Empirical Findings from Agricultural Expansion and Land Use Change in Brazil. In: Khanna, M., Zilberman, D. (eds) Handbook of Bioenergy Economics and Policy: Volume II. Natural Resource Management and Policy, vol 40. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-6906-7_11
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