Abstract
The conflict between food production and environmental conservation demands alternative agriculture practices to maintain or increase food production, protect and restore critical ecosystem processes, and reduce dependence on non-renewable agricultural inputs. Deforestation in Brazil’s Atlantic Forest, for which agriculture has been a primary driver, already threatens the biome’s impressive biodiversity and the ecosystem services it helps sustain. Many small family farmers in Santa Catarina—located in the South of Brazil—have adopted the Voisin Rational Grazing System (VRG) as an alternative to conventional and environmentally detrimental dairy activities. This article presents the results of a research project designed to analyze the economic, social, and ecological VRG impacts based on farmers’ perceptions and economic accounts. We compare farmer profitability and critical social and environmental aspects of both systems using detailed interviews and monthly accounting of revenues and expenditures on VRG and conventional farms. We found that VRG is more profitable than the conventional dairy system in Santa Rosa de Lima. However, most farmers combine VRG with some conventional practices, affecting profitability and potential ecological benefits. The adoption of VRG in Santa Rosa de Lima nonetheless correlates with reduced use of environmentally harmful inputs, compatible with a gradual transition to a more ecologically-friendly and sustainable system.
Highlights
Agriculture, which occupies nearly 38% of the Earth’s land surface area [1], is among the leading threats to global ecosystems and the life-sustaining ecosystem services they generate [2]
Santa Rosa de Lima (SRL) is a small municipality located in the coastal mountain range of Santa Catarina, a Brazilian state located in the southern region of the country
The environmental and social aspects are comprised of results from analysis of data collected in the first interview, based on farmers’ perceptions
Summary
Agriculture, which occupies nearly 38% of the Earth’s land surface area [1], is among the leading threats to global ecosystems and the life-sustaining ecosystem services they generate [2]. Agriculture’s current ecological impacts already threaten the ecosystem services upon which agriculture depends [4], and with current technologies, impacts will only worsen as we increase output [5]. Addressing this dilemma requires agricultural systems that can “increase food production from existing farmland in ways that place far less pressure on the environment and that do not undermine capacity to continue producing food in thecan future” [6] Sustainable intensification, ecological intensification, sustainable agriculture, organic duction from existing farmland in ways that place far less pressure on the environment agriculture, permaculture, biodynamic agriculture, and agroecology related and that do not undermine our capacity to continue producing are foodall in the future” [6]
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