Increased Brazilian beef exports indirectly lead to deforestation in the Amazon region. The environmental effect is much larger than previously indicated, according to new research from the University of Gothenburg, Chalmers University of Technology and SIK published in Environmental Science & Technology. The researchers are demanding that indirect effects of land use changes be considered when estimating a product’s carbon footprint.
’Ten percent of the total global carbon dioxide emissions occur in connection with deforestation. The increasing demand for fodder, biofuel and food, especially beef, leads to an increased demand for farmland, which in turn leads to deforestation and even more emissions,’ says one of the authors of the article, Martin Persson, School of Business, Economics and Law and the Gothenburg Centre of Globalization and Development at the University of Gothenburg. Persson is currently guest researcher at the EfD Center for Central America at CATIE, Costa Rica.
In Brazil, beef production is the main cause of deforestation in the Amazon region. The direct effect of this is that large areas of valuable rainforests are disappearing, yet deforestation also contributes to the greenhouse effect. When the carbon-rich forest is burned down to create new pastures, large amounts of carbon dioxide are released. It is estimated that 60-70 percent of the total deforested area can be linked to cattle farming.
Since the turn of the century, Brazil has become the world-leading exporter of beef. Since only six percent of the produced meat comes from the deforested areas of the Amazon region, the issue of deforestation has never been considered in international estimations of the climatic impact, or the so-called carbon footprint, of the Brazilian beef production.
’The problem with this is that the carbon footprint of these six percent is about 25 times higher than the rest of the beef produced in Brazil. As a result, the average carbon dioxide emissions linked to the Brazilian beef production is twice the European level,’ says Sverker Molander, Professor in Environmental Systems Analysis at Chalmers University of Technology and co-author of the study.
The article published in Environmental Science & Technology shows that the increasing beef exports is a major factor behind the increasing beef production in Brazil and that it therefore has indirectly caused an expansion of pastures in the Amazon region. The current practice of considering only the direct effects of land use change when estimating a product’s carbon footprint is therefore misleading.
’We used different estimation models when writing the article but kept concluding that Brazilian beef is very carbon intense,’ says Molander. ‘The message is that if the indirect emissions are not accounted for, there is a risk that decision makers and consumers get the wrong signals. In a nutshell, it leads to underestimation of the climatic effects of Brazilian beef.’
’The core of the problem is that we keep eating more and more meat. Every time we eat meat, the risk of deforestation increases,’ says Christel Cederberg, also one of the authors of the article and researcher at Chalmers and SIK.
The Brazilian Ministry of Agriculture has set a goal to double the country’s beef export in the next ten years. At the same time, the global demand for biodiesel and ethanol produced from soy and sugarcane in the southern parts of the country is increasing and this has led to increasing land prices. Many cattle ranchers are selling their valuable grazing land to soy and sugar cane farmers and then buying larger land areas in the less expensive northern region.
‘The global meat consumption is expected to increase by up to 80 percent by 2050, and this will require more grazing land and increased soy cultivation. Add to this the increasing demand for land to produce bioenergy. The yields can’t keep increasing forever. No matter how you look at the forecasts, we are facing changed and increased land use,’ says Cederberg.
Read the article in Environmental Science &Technology:http://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/es103240z
For more information, please contact:Martin Persson, researchers at the Centre of Globalization and Development, Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, University of Gothenburgmartin.persson@economics.gu.se
Sverker Molander, Professor in Environmental Systems Analysis at Chalmers University of Technologysverker.molander@chalmers.se +46 (0)31 772 21 69
Christel Cederberg, researcher at Chalmers University of Technology and SIK (the Swedish Institute for Food and Biotechnology)christel.cederberg@sik.se +46 (0)708 71 03 74