Production of soy, beef and other agricultural commodities to feed a growing world population has meant a dire increase in deforestation, as farmers clear standing forests to open new land for fields. That's why we're working with partners in the Brazilian Amazon and Cerrado, and the Chaco in Argentina, Paraguay and Bolivia to shift current practices so these production methods stop contributing to deforestation.
We’re also supporting scientists who are helping us understand the ways regulations influence work on agricultural sustainability. One grant, to Stanford University’s School of Earth Sciences, has funded research to help clarify the conditions in which more environmentally sustainable beef and soy operations lead to reduced deforestation in Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay. This research is also helping design an effective combination of supply chain and public policy strategies for deforestation-free beef and soy production.
As a result of this funding, a group of researchers led by Stanford’s Eric Lambin now offers a comprehensive look at the different forms of “leakage,” or outflow beyond the system, resulting from the public and private regulations in place in the Amazon, Cerrado and Chaco in Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina and Bolivia. The research, published in the journal World Development, used the Trase platform, a powerful tool that helps governments, companies, investors and others track environmental and social impacts linked throughout supply chains with the aim to reduce agricultural drivers of deforestation.
Highlights from the paper’s findings:
- The Amazon is the only biome where regulations (private and public) have reduced pasture expansion in the region (from 2001-2013).
- There is no apparent deforestation leakage related to beef or soy to less regulated regions, except for cattle within the Amazon biome (regions are equivalent to municipalities or provinces). Quite the opposite, soy expansion actually increased in regions with more stringent regulations, aside from the Amazon.
- Deforestation regulations did affect beef and soy exports: All key import countries decreased their beef imports from exporters with more stringent regulations, but this was less pronounced in imports from EU countries. As a result, there might have been some market leakage to regions outside central South America; Non-EU countries reduced their soy imports from more regulated regions, but this reduction was largely offset by increased imports by EU countries.
- For the beef sector, changing regulations appear to have led to a rearrangement of trade patterns in a way that accommodated continued deforestation (exports were largely replaced domestic sales). Reducing deforestation at a wider scale will likely require broad participation of market actors, including the domestic market in public-private arrangements.
- Particularly in the Amazon, where regulations reduced pasture expansion, market leakage might have been mitigated by cattle intensification, which occurred simultaneously due to parallel governmental programs. Avoiding future leakage will require increasing restrictions.
Prior findings supported by this same grant provided evidence that agricultural companies are able to offset or avoid deforestation regulations by moving to less-restricted areas, suggesting that addressing deforestation requires greater cohesion of regulations across geographies and support for agricultural sustainability overall.
For additional information, read more about other work we’re supporting through our Forests and Agricultural Markets Initiative.
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