Nobel laureate proposes Brazilian agriculture as a global model

The Indian scientist based in the United States, Rattan Lai, co-laureate of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 and winner of the World Food Prize in 2020, proposes that the Brazilian Low Carbon Agriculture (ABC) program serve as a model for others poor and developing countries.

Through lower interest rates, the ABC Program finances recovery actions for degraded pastures, direct planting in straw and crop-livestock-forest integration (ILPF), among other conservationist practices that contribute to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. In the African savanna alone, according to Lal, there are 193 million hectares of pastures and 54 million agricultural lands that could benefit from modern Brazilian tropical agricultural technology, due to the similarities of the biomes.

“The success of the ABC program needs to be translated, extrapolated and amplified to developing countries around the world. The Cerrado miracle is an example of what can be done in Africa. I believe that the Brics countries, together, can make a big difference”, said Rattan Lai during a conference at the 78th Official Week of Engineering and Agronomy (Soea), held in Gramado (RS).

Saying he is optimistic about the future, Lai understands that Brazil should not settle for having agriculture labeled as carbon neutral. “The goal is not zero emissions, but negative emissions. We just sent a document to the makers of the US Farm Bill, in which we advocate paying $50 per acre per year for adopting conservation technologies that sequester carbon in the soil. If that happens, I hope that Brazil will follow the same path”, emphasized the scientist.

After speaking to the audience of Brazilian engineers, Rattan Lai, who is professor of Soil Sciences at Ohio State University, spoke with People’s Gazette. See the main excerpts.

It is necessary to change the mindset in relation to agriculture

You say that the world needs to transform agricultural solutions into environmental solutions. However, there are still many people who see these two areas in conflict, as if they were not complementary. How to solve it?

That’s what happens, agriculture is blamed everywhere, whether in Brazil or India. Somehow we need to change the perceptions, the mindset, the belief among people that agriculture is a problem. It involves communication, education, to understand that agriculture is absolutely important, it is the source of the food we all need, three times a day.

We need to ensure that our agriculture has a profile of producing more with less. Less land, less water, less energy, less greenhouse gas emissions, less pollution, less loss of biodiversity. And this is possible. If we adopt the best practices, we can save areas of nature. Of the 5 billion hectares currently devoted to agriculture in the world, I believe that half could end up being returned to nature if we practice better agriculture.

Brazil has an immense protected Amazon rainforest. But the pastures that were taken from the Amazon, and that are degraded, it is possible to reforest them. The growth of secondary forests can be a solution, and during the growth of these secondary forests it is possible to integrate agriculture and livestock. There are many mechanisms in which agriculture can and should be the solution.

Miracle of the Cerrado: an achievement of the modern world

In your lectures, you have stated that the “miracle of the Cerrado”, that is, the production of food in a biome that was previously considered unsuitable, was one of the most important achievements of the modern world. Is it possible to reconcile production and preservation in the Cerrado?

On the one hand, yes, intensive agriculture in the Cerrado has created emissions, some soil erosion problems, it has degraded a bit of biodiversity, but it doesn’t have to be that way. If you practice better agriculture, setting aside land that is vulnerable to degradation, reintegrating it into nature, you can turn agriculture into a solution.

And to encourage the producer to practice agriculture friendly to nature, it is necessary to reward him. This is critical. It is not about rewarding the producer for producing more, but for practicing better agriculture. And this reward mechanism can become a model, from Brazil to the Brics, to developing countries, to Africa and elsewhere.

We need to look at agriculture as a solution to the environmental issue. People who blame agriculture should rethink, and change their mindset. Respect producers, their profession, instead of accusing them.

There is no such thing as pure air and water without healthy soil.

Another complaint of yours is that people often talk about preserving air, water, the environment, but they don’t talk about the soil, which is at the base of everything…

Exactly. You can’t have pure air and water if you don’t have soil. Unfortunately people don’t pay attention to that. In the 17 Sustainable Development Goals for the Millennium (SDGs, from the UN), the word soil does not appear once. How is it possible to end hunger if there is no soil, how to end poverty if the soil is not healthy? How to have purer water, if soil is the best filter for water? How to have purer air, if the soil breathes nitroxides and other greenhouse gases?

And soil can bury carbon…

Exactly. Soil is the largest reservoir of carbon in the Earth’s biosphere. It can take excess from the atmosphere and retain it for a long time, for millennia. It’s not just emission neutral. Neutral is nothing, it serves the industry. In agriculture, it is a negative emission.

Several Brazilian scientists would deserve the Nobel Prize

Did former Agriculture Minister Alysson Paolinelli, who recently passed away, deserve a Nobel Prize for what he did for Brazilian agriculture, particularly for the revolution in food production in the Cerrado?

Not only him, but many Brazilian scientists deserve the Nobel Prize. Johanna Döbereiner, for example, who worked at Embrapa in Rio de Janeiro, was a pioneer in showing that Brachiaria fixes nitrogen. But unfortunately agriculture is not part of the Nobel Prize subjects. That’s why people think that agriculture is not a science. But it is indeed a very important science, and this should be reconsidered.

For you, the soil is a living being, and as such, it must have its own rights. What rights are these?

First, it is necessary to understand that the soil is a living entity. Soil is home to 25% of all terrestrial biodiversity. The soil breathes, like you and me. It is the only place in the universe capable of turning death into life. The bald eagle in the US has its rights, the monarch butterfly and panda bears have their rights, how come the soil doesn’t have rights?

Just because you own a piece of land doesn’t mean you can abuse the soil, pollute and contaminate it. Soil and life go together. All religions, whether Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism or Hinduism, all give the soil the status of mother earth. Unfortunately, in many countries the mother, who gives us birth, and the soil, which is a gift for everyone, we talk about them, but we don’t respect them.

Does this not mean that the soil, and the environment, must be seen as untouchable sanctuaries, as opposed to agricultural activity?

Farming needs to be done properly. The difference between poison and medicine is the dose. The time between one dose and another, the volume of this dose. If you take an aspirin, it cures your headache. If you take a hundred, you could die. So, the fertilizer, the pesticide, the chemical, the energy, should be used with a dose of medicine. Not indiscriminately. It is indiscriminate, excessive and unscientific use that makes this chemical a poison. This is the key to understand what I said, that we don’t need 200 million tons of fertilizers, because the use efficiency is only 30%. If we improve the efficiency of use, we will decrease the volumes demanded. It is enough that we use fertilizers and water by irrigation, drip by drop, when necessary, and not in a gross and wasteful way.

“Brazil has a moral duty to help Africa”

His thesis is that tropical agriculture practiced in Brazil can be useful if applied in African countries to fight hunger. There are those who say, however, that we shouldn’t teach them, because they will compete with us. How to reconcile this?

I’m going to use a saying in Sanskrit, the ancestral language, which I study and like a lot. Only two words: जगत् कुटुम्बम् अस्ति. ‘The world is a family’. If you live in Brazil, Africa or India, we are all one family. And when a family member is starving, the family must take care of him. So, our brothers and sisters anywhere in the world, if they are in need of food, and Brazil has the scientific capacity to produce more food, Brazil has a moral duty to help other family members.

Brazil itself has already been helped. And now it’s time to give back, it’s reciprocal. And Brazil will win, not lose. It will win economically, socially, morally, culturally. Brazil has an African population, you know that.

The war in Ukraine affected the whole world, especially Africa, because we are all interdependent, interconnected. World peace and tranquility will never come as long as there is some place where people are hungry. When people are hungry and desperate, and there is a fire burning in the pit of their empty stomachs, that is the cause of war, of despair. People are willing to do anything. It is not possible to have peace on an empty stomach.

If Brazil helps Africa, helps the Caribbean nations, the Andean countries, that could raise Brazil’s prestige. Make it a leader. It is an opportunity that should not be missed.

*The journalist traveled to Gramado at the invitation of the Federal Council of Engineering and Agronomy (Confea)