Brazil has emerged as one of the world’s great agricultural powerhouses over the past 50 years, helping transform food production on nearly every continent. To put it lightly, the country has an uphill battle ahead. Yet it faces an impossible challenge to feed a burgeoning population while conserving its uniquely varied ecosystems, jeopardizing the future of agricultural production systems. Projections show Brazil’s agricultural frontier will undergo dramatic transformations, forced by a combination of environmental necessity and market forces.
Recent calculations have shown that by 2030 Brazil will be sequestering more than 12.4 gigatonnes of additional CO2. This value corresponds to about five years of emissions from fossil fuels and industry in the EU. This encouraging result comes from the Shared Socioeconomic Pathway (SSP1) scenario. In this optimistic case, agricultural land should continue to decrease as food consumption drops and biomass yields make large productivity gains.
Contrasting scenarios present starkly different outcomes. Under the SSP3 scenario, Brazil might be able to clear as much as 52 million hectares of natural land for agriculture. This major reorientation is taking place to address growing world demand for food. This change has serious consequences, particularly regarding energy use and the environment. Overall, experts now predict that the change in natural vegetation will emit 12 gigatonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere. This huge source of carbon dioxide will be felt intensely during this time.
The consequences go further than climate change, doing severe damage to the world’s biodiversity. Specifically, the primate species Saguinus bicolor is predicted to lose over 7% of its remaining habitat in Brazil. Habitat destruction is the leading single threat to 68% of the region’s terrestrial mammal species. This crisis threatens species such as the maned wolf and howler monkey.
Revenue is projected to drop by a staggering 31% over the years from 2025 to 2050. Unfortunately, the problem is exacerbated by the fact that agricultural expansion has decimated our environment. In the last four decades, an area roughly the size of Brazil—over 109 million hectares—of intact nature was replaced by industrial pastures, croplands, and forest plantations.
In response to these pressing challenges, Brazil has initiated its own Greenhouse Gas Emissions Trading System (SBCE), aiming to mitigate emissions while promoting sustainable agricultural practices. The path toward sustainable land use in Brazil hinges on two pivotal questions: how much land is essential for agriculture and which specific areas should be utilized.
Pushing forward Brazil’s restoration efforts would provide an immediate, though small, economic stimulus. In practice, experts have repeatedly projected revenue losses to be at most $5 to $10 per ton of carbon attained. Such numbers highlight the inevitable necessity of harmonizing agro-productive capability with conservation-oriented management.