Recovery of degraded pasture depends on investment – 01/20/2024 – Environment

Despite being one of the references in agricultural production in the world, Brazil is still not effective in recovering degraded areas. According to the most recent survey by MapBiomas, the country has 164.3 million hectares of pasture and, by 2022, 75% of this coverage showed some level of deterioration.

Degraded land reduces productivity in the field and is harmful to the environment. This occurs because, in a nutritious state, the soil acts as a carbon reservoir and helps reduce greenhouse gas emissions, which cause global warming.

Jaçanan Eloisa Milani, coordinator of the postgraduate program in forestry and environmental sciences at UFMT (Federal University of Mato Grosso) and researcher in the area, explains that deterioration interrupts ecological processes in the soil and interferes with characteristics such as the amount of microorganisms gifts.

“When we talk about soil degradation, we promote changes that will make it lose its ability to be productive and be incapable of receiving or supporting the presence of a forest, for example,” he states.

Another characteristic of depleted soil is the inability to retain water, a factor that makes it impossible to supply nutrients to plants, says Vanderley Porfirio, a researcher at Embrapa Florestas. Incorrect management of the area can be one of the most important causes of pasture degradation, he says.

On the properties of rural producer Daniel Wolf, 40, soil recovery has boosted productivity. With three farms in Nova Canaã do Norte (MT), which are currently in an integration system between livestock and forestry, he says that degraded pasture is one of the biggest difficulties in production.

For him, the main investments should be directed to business management and the soil, even if the cost is high and challenges producers.

Milani, from UFMT, emphasizes that, to recover degraded areas, it is necessary to eliminate the factor that causes deterioration. “It could be the presence of cattle, fires, mining… With the elimination of the degradation factor, this environment will be able to recover ecological processes”, he says.

For rural producers who do not have financial conditions, there are alternatives. An example is what the company Caaporã Agrosilvipastoril does, which finances and implements a new field system through a partnership with rural properties. Currently, the company maintains contracts in Mato Grosso, Tocantins, Bahia and São Paulo.

“We enter into partnership contracts of 10 to 12 years with the farm and the owner, in which we take over the management of the farm and carry out all the recovery of the pasture and the implementation of a new production system”, explains business director, Laurent Micol.

Caaporã also plants trees in rows in these spaces, in a system called silvopastoral — that is, the integration of livestock activity with the forest.

Micol explains that pasture recovery is complex and does not just involve soil correction and fertilization. “We need to implement a new production model, otherwise the pasture that has degraded will degrade again.”

In the process used at Caaporã, the soil undergoes harrowing (surface uniformity) to remove old pasture, cleaning, application of limestone for correction and fertilization, so that a new pasture can finally be cultivated. Only after this cycle is the new production system implemented.

The director says that, normally, farms adopt the continuous grazing system, in which the animals are released for months on large areas of pasture. With the company’s intervention, the properties switch to rotational grazing.

“We divide the farm into modules of 20 to 30 hectares and, then, each of these modules is subdivided into paddocks. During management, the cattle move from one paddock to another”, he explains.

This way, says Micol, the animals always have quality pasture and gain weight faster, and the area is not depleted in the same proportions as in the continuous grazing model.

“The tree is comfort for cattle in the field. It can degrade the pasture a little, but it does not damage the soil, so it is important that the management of these areas is adequate”, assesses Porfirio, from Embrapa, who considers the integration of livestock farming with forests an alternative to avoid severe deterioration of pasture and soil.

For recovery to be more effective, the researchers say it is necessary to expand rural education on land use. “It is necessary to invest a lot in the recovery chain, but it is also necessary to have more technical knowledge about degradation factors”, says Milani, from UFMT.

Porfirio, from Embrapa, says that care can be understood through a popular saying. “We don’t buy the land, we borrow it from future generations. That’s what the soil is. If we degrade it today, it won’t be available for those who want it later, or it will be very expensive.”

This report was produced during Lab Tereos + Folha – 2nd Specialized Journalism Program in Sustainable Agroindustry.