Amazon: City with agricultural mayor no longer deforested – 02/19/2024 – Market

Municipalities in the Legal Amazon with mayors who came from agribusiness did not deforest more than cities administered by leaders who had no connection to the sector, according to a study carried out by researchers from FGV (Fundação Getulio Vargas) and the Wharton School, in the United States.

The researchers concluded that agricultural managers followed the national trend of reducing deforestation in the period analyzed. Furthermore, the municipalities they manage saw a more significant emergence of new businesses.

“The initial hypothesis was that a politician with roots in the countryside could be generating harmful environmental action, but the results point to the opposite. There was deforestation, but it was not greater than in the municipality where the agricultural candidate lost”, says Gustavo Cordeiro, one of the authors.

The work is written by Cordeiro, Paulo Arvate and Joana Story, from FGV, and Leandro Pongeluppe, from the Wharton School. The material considers mandates that began after three municipal elections: 2004, 2008 and 2012.

According to the study, the average deforestation in the municipalities where agricultural mayors were elected was 42.11 km² in the four years following the election. The average for municipalities with mayors from other sectors was 48.95 km².

Due to the standard deviation calculated for the sample, it cannot be inferred that these values ​​are statistically different — in practice, agricultural leaders and those outside of it showed similar deforestation after the elections, according to the researchers.

To reach these results, data were compiled from the Prodes program, Inpe (National Institute for Space Research), Rais (Annual Social Information List) and the TSE (Superior Electoral Court).

The survey includes more than 700 municipalities in the Legal Amazon. In the study, they compared similar cities.

Using an econometric method called “regression discontinuity”, they initially considered 2,280 examples of close municipal elections. The sample was then reduced to around 400 cases in which the agricultural candidate won the dispute or was in second place.

According to Arvate, the objective was to demonstrate the weight that the mayor’s origin could have on his performance — in comparison, other issues, such as the elected official’s gender, employment and unemployment or vaccination rate were statistically identical between municipalities.

They also tested this same comparison with eight other professions, such as a doctor or lawyer, and did not notice a difference in the results.

To classify a politician as originating from the sector, they used the answers given by TSE candidates, considering those who said they were livestock farmers or agribusiness owners.

To check the links between agricultural politicians and the sector, the researchers checked whether they owned a significant number of cattle or rural properties, for example.

Electoral data does not, however, allow us to separate those elected who do not have a declared origin in agriculture, but are supported by the sector.

The work began in 2019 and does not consider data from municipalities after the beginning of Jair Bolsonaro’s (PL) government, which was marked by the emptying of environmental preservation policies and by statements from the former president himself questioning deforestation.

“The period we are evaluating saw a reduction in deforestation in the country. With the Bolsonaro government, it may have started to increase. From what we observed, the key was monitoring. Under these conditions, the mayor of agriculture will not deforest more or less than other local leadership,” says Arvate.

Upon winning his third term, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) put the issue of environmental preservation back on the radar, including reappointing Minister Marina Silva (Rede) to the Environment portfolio.

Under the current government, after four consecutive years of high rates, annual deforestation in the Amazon remained below 10 thousand km². From August 2022 to July 2023, 9,001 km² of forest were lost, a reduction of 22.3% compared to the previous period.

The study authors emphasize that the Prodes records, which served as the basis for the study, come from satellite images and show the variation from one year to the next, without differentiating what constitutes illegal deforestation.

“At no time do we say that there is no deforestation. In 2004, there was a peak, which started to fall nationally. We point out that institutional measures guided local behavior, and the stance of this local leadership was no different”, says Cordeiro.

The researchers reinforce that leaders who work in ecologically sensitive regions can and should use management tools, such as local investment policies, to reconcile economic growth with environmental preservation.

At this point, the study highlights that mayors with agribusiness backgrounds stood out in terms of economic performance, with the creation of new companies in the municipalities.

The results suggest the use of direct contributions in agricultural incentives and investments in housing and urban planning, to promote greater economic development.

In examples they analyzed in the period, this occurred through different measures — from the construction of public markets for the sale of local products to the purchase of seeds for distribution among producers; from obtaining tractors for collective use to the acquisition of trucks and boats that helped with the flow of production.

Among the companies that were opened in the municipalities, the highlight is the creation of CNPJs linked to the services sector. Cities with agricultural mayors created ten more companies per year than municipalities governed by leaders from other professions.

The effect is intensified in locations that make a living from soybeans, where the difference between the average number of companies created by leaders who came from agriculture and those from other areas is 40 more companies per year, 90% of which are in the services sector.

The researchers consider the opening of companies of different sizes. As the municipalities analyzed have, on average, 20 thousand inhabitants, most of them are small.

“There was a dynamism in those municipalities, apparently simple measures, such as creating access roads to a certain location, generated a demand. These companies ended up growing and formalizing, hiring employees and helping to boost the local economy”, concludes Cordeiro.