Agricultural Frontier Research Articles

This paper presents the productive dynamics of the municipalities of the Centro-Norte of Brazil in the first decades of the 21st century. The Location Quotient (QL) was created and the values were compared with the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of each municipality. For this purpose, secondary data were obtained from the Ministério do Trabalho e Emprego (MTE), in the Relação Anual de Informações Sociais (RAIS) database. It was observed that the municipalities that operate in the mining sector had higher GDP values, Parauapebas and Canaã dos Carajás, in Pará. Most municipalities in the Centro-Norte had high QL values for the public administration. The branch of activity with the greatest expression in is agriculture. Therefore, it is suggested that future studies be carried out in the North Center with the objective of identifying regional disparities more clearly and proposing more incisive public policies for residents, considering their role steakholders. Keywords: agricultural frontier; public policies; regional development; productive specialization.

The global palm oil industry faces increasing pressure to eliminate deforestation from its supply chains, driven by international commitments such as the European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) standards, and Indonesia’s Forest and Other Land Use (FOLU) Net Sink 2030 commitment. These frameworks require effective mechanisms to identify and safeguard ecologically and socially valuable landscapes within agricultural frontiers. Integrating High Conservation Value (HCV) principles into land use planning is therefore critical to balancing commodity production, biodiversity conservation, and community rights. This study analyzes how oil palm development in Mandailing Natal, North Sumatra, can align with High Conservation Value (HCV) protection. Using a 2024 district-wide ABKT-HCS (High Conservation Value and High Carbon Stock) assessment and scenario modeling, the study examines forest encroachment, institutional fragmentation, and policy gaps undermining sustainable land use. Although more than half of the district is legally defined as forest, rapid plantation expansion—driven by smallholder pressures, tenure insecurity, and weak inter-agency coordination—continues to erode ecological integrity and cultural landscapes. Scenario analysis shows that improving yields through Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) and participatory zoning can enhance productivity without new deforestation. The paper recommends integrating ABKT spatial data into formal land-use planning, institutionalizing Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC), and implementing community-based monitoring. These strategies support a jurisdictional sustainability transition consistent with Indonesia’s FOLU Net Sink 2030 objective.

In this paper, we show how ilegal land grabbing has become the main method of appropriating land in the western region of Bahia. As the initial focus of the agricultural frontier now known as MATOPIBA, the region was targeted, especially from the 1970s onwards, by the conservative modernisation project in the countryside imposed by the Military-Business Dictatorship (1985-1964). With a territorial focus on the Corrente River Basin, in 1980 alone, this research identified a total of 1,486,592ha of land formally appropriated through fraudulent titles and registry records. In order to appropriate this superlative size, only 11 land registry records were used in the municipality of Correntina (BA), through fraudulent area rectification actions. The plateaus of the São Francisco River and its associated valleys, traditionally occupied in common by groups of riverside peasants and geraizeiros, indigenous people, blacks and mestizos, were the most coveted lands in this process. In this context, their formal status as public lands facilitated strategies for their illegal appropriation. With the second commodities super-cycle in the 2000s, the physical appropriation of the chapadões intensified with the deforestation of the Cerrado on a scale and at a speed unprecedented in history, amplifying the socio-environmental impacts for the riverside communities and pasture bottoms and closes that still resist this process today.

Complex relationships between large-scale land acquisitions, deforestation, and land zoning policies in agricultural frontiers

The growing global demand for soybean protein is driving the expansion of cultivation into new agricultural frontiers. Kenya has been progressing in the development of soybean genotypes to identify those best adapted to its diverse agroecological conditions. However, the selection of genotypes with superior agronomic traits and high stability remains limited. This study quantified the magnitude of genotype-by-environment (GtimesE) interaction and selected genotypes with the best performance and stability based on a multi-trait approach. A total of 65 genotypes were evaluated across 19 environments from 2019 to 2023/24 growing seasons using a randomized complete block design. Stability was assessed using the Weighted Average of Absolute Scores index, considering plant height (PH), number of days to maturity (NDM), and grain yield (GY). Multi-trait selection was performed using the Desired Gain Index, applying a 20% selection intensity, followed by the genetic gain estimation. Using the likelihood ratio test, we identified significant effects of genotype, environment, and GtimesE interaction. The overall mean values observed in the experiments were 62.30 cm for PH, 120 days for NDM, and 1783.70 kg ha−1 for GY. In the multi-trait analysis, we selected the ideotypes G42, G26, G46, G35, G53, G41, G12, G54, G39, G52, G02, and G37. This selection resulted in a genetic gain of 6.5% for PH, 1.3% for NDM, and 15.6% for GY. These genotypes exhibited high genetic potential and adaptation to Kenyan conditions.

Family farming is essential for sustainable development in Brazil, significantly contributing to food security and environmental preservation. In Mato Grosso, the expansion of the agricultural frontier has led to intense territorial transformations, driven by policies that promoted land occupation and agribusiness growth, resulting in high land concentration and territorial conflicts. The territoriality of family farming goes beyond land ownership, involving cultural practices and a symbiotic relationship with the environment. However, inequality in access to resources, such as credit and infrastructure, limits the potential of small producers. Public policies, like PRONAF, have played a relevant role but face limitations due to bureaucracy and insufficient reach. Democratizing land use is important for promoting social justice and integrating family farmers into economic development. The text emphasizes the need for strategies that balance

During the last decades, Ecuador's páramo wetlands have become increasingly important sites for environmental governance. Historically, these humid, highly biodiverse Andean moorland ecosystems were seen as empty desolate and unproductive spaces, and later, between the 1960s and 1990s, as spaces for expanding the agricultural frontier of rural communities. Since the end of the 1990s, this changed as páramos came to be seen as important spaces for biodiversity and water conservation. Using the Foucauldian notion of governmentality we show, first, that a new “narrative” about these spaces leads to new state and non-state interventions that rearrange the socio-material relations in these ecosystems. Then we analyze how the “conservation narrative” has been translated to projects and programs that advance biodiversity conservation and the water regulating capacity of paramos. By analyzing the most important Ecuadorian paramo conservation initiatives of the last three decades, we show how this takes place through different techniques of government that aim to conduct-the-conduct of rural communities. The latter we argue, is a continuation of a centuries old pattern of governing marginalized rural populations to serve the interests of the ruling elite. Historically, this process created longstanding socio-environmental injustices that current initiatives are failing to address. The latter makes many of the conservation interventions fragile in the long run.

In the face of climate change and increasing human pressure, monitoring ecosystem productivity is essential for the sustainable management of natural resources. The Mouhoun Province, located in western Burkina Faso, is undergoing significant ecological transformations that affect vegetation production. This study aims to analyze the spatio-temporal dynamics of dry matter productivity (DMP) at the communal level for the years 2001, 2011, and 2021. The methodology is based on the use of satellite images from the Copernicus/NDVI database, reprocessed to estimate DMP in kg DM/ha. The approach involved aggregating values by commune from time series data, extracting trends, and mapping spatio-temporal changes using a Geographic Information System (GIS). Additionally, field observations were conducted. This paper seeks to identify communes affected by a decrease or increase in DMP and to analyze the underlying explanatory factors. The results reveal significant heterogeneity in vegetation productivity across the Mouhoun Province. Some communes, such as Safané and Dédougou, show a downward trend in DMP between 2001 and 2021, while Kona shows a slight improvement. These variations are closely linked to the expansion of agricultural frontiers, land pressure, and climatic variability. The study highlights the relevance of satellite imagery as a decision-support tool and opens avenues for integrating DMP into local climate change adaptation policies.

The discussion surrounding the expansion of neo-extractivism in the Amazon gains heightened relevance in the context of COP30, which will be hosted in Brazil, drawing global attention to the country’s climate commitments and to the strategic role of the Amazon in addressing the global environmental crisis. This article offers a critical analysis of neo-extractivism in the region from historical, ecological, and sociopolitical perspectives, highlighting its continuities with previous cycles of exploitation, such as the rubber boom and the expansion of the agricultural frontier. It is argued that, despite its integration into global markets and the adoption of modern technologies, the current model perpetuates colonial logics of territorial appropriation and environmental degradation. The analysis addresses the differentiated impacts on local populations, emphasizing how variables such as gender, ethnicity, and generation shape resistance strategies and community-based responses. Furthermore, the study explores the effects of neo-extractivist dynamics on biodiversity, hydrological cycles, and the Amazon’s carbon regime, underscoring the interdependence between environmental degradation and social conflict. Based on this, the article proposes pathways toward sustainable alternatives grounded in the valorization of traditional knowledge, the strengthening of public policies, and the restructuring of territorial and environmental governance. It concludes that overcoming predatory extractivism requires structural transformations in development paradigms and in the relationships between the state, the market, and traditional communities—placing socio-environmental justice at the center of the political agenda to be discussed at COP30.

ABSTRACTThe Amazon is recognised as one of the most conserved tropical rainforests in the world. However, along its peripheral agricultural frontiers, mammal assemblages are gradually being eroded due to deforestation of this large area known as the Arc of Deforestation, particularly along the Amazon's southeast. In this study, we aimed to expand on the knowledge of richness, composition, and defaunation of mammal assemblages in two priority protected areas for biodiversity in the region: Cristalino State Park (hereafter Cristalino) and Xingu State Park (hereafter Xingu). We used camera traps and line transects for data collection between 2020 and 2021. Our results demonstrated that both protected areas support rich assemblages of medium‐ and large‐sized mammals within the south‐central Amazon (Cristalino—32 species, Xingu—30 species). Due to the differing vegetation types between each park, the two mammal assemblages showed significant differences in species composition. Even with one of the highest biomasses of large ungulates (tapir and brocket deer) and apex predators (jaguar and puma) compared to other protected areas in south‐central Amazon, both areas showed a high biomass defaunation index relative to these same areas. The result is largely driven by the low abundance of peccaries, especially Tayassu pecari. This could be one of the impacts of extensive human pressure caused by deforestation and degradation around and inside these protected areas. Both parks play an important role in the survival of threatened mammals, and in maintaining biodiversity and ecosystem functionality in the southern Amazon, helping to curb agricultural expansion into the interior of the Amazon rainforest.

The provision of food in pre-Inca/Inca cultures (1000 BC–≈1532 AD) in environments near Lake Titikaka (approximately 4000 m above sea level) was possible through an agricultural technique called “Waru-Waru”, which consists of filling the space (volume) between rows of land containing plants that are cultivated (a series of earth platforms surrounded by water canals) with water, using water as thermal energy storage to store energy during the day and to regulate the temperature of the soil and crop atmosphere at night. The problem is that these cultures left no evidence in written documents that have been preserved to this day indicating the mathematical models, the physics involved, and the experimental part they performed for the research, development, and innovation of the “Waru-Waru” technique. From a review of the existing literature, there is (1) bibliography that is devoted to descriptive research (about the geometry, dimensions, and shapes of the crop fields (and more based on archaeological remains that have survived to the present day) and (2) studies presenting complex mathematical models with many physical parameters measured only with recently developed instrumentation. The research objectives of this paper are as follows: (1) develop a mathematical model that uses finite differences in fluid mechanics, thermodynamics, and heat transfer to explain the experimental and theory principles of this pre-Inca/Inca technique; (2) the proposed mathematical model must be in accordance with the mathematical calculation tools available in pre-Inca/Inca cultures (yupana and quipu), which are mainly based on arithmetic operations such as addition, subtraction, and multiplication; (3) develop a mathematical model in a sequence of steps aimed at determining the best geometric form for thermal energy storage and plant cultivation and that has a simple design (easy to transmit between farmers); (4) consider the assumptions necessary for the development of the mathematical model from the point of view of research on the geometry of earth platforms and water channels and their implantation in each cultivation area; (5) transmit knowledge of the construction and maintenance of “Waru-Waru” agricultural technology to farmers who have cultivated these fields since pre-Hispanic times. The main conclusion is that, in the mathematical model developed, algebraic mathematical expressions based on addition and multiplication are obtained to predict and explain the evolution of soil and water temperatures in a specific crop field using crop field characterization parameters for which their values are experimentally determined in the crop area where a “Waru-Waru” is to be built. Therefore, the storage of thermal energy in water allows crops to survive nights with low temperatures, and indirectly, it allows the interpretation that the Inca culture possessed knowledge of mathematics (addition, subtraction, multiplication, finite differences, approximation methods, and the like), physics (fluids, thermodynamics, and heat transfer), and experimentation, with priority given to agricultural techniques (and in general, as observed in all archaeological evidence) that are in-depth, exact, practical, lasting, and easy to transmit. Understanding this sustainable energy storage technique can be useful in the current circumstances of global warming and climate change within the same growing areas and/or in similar climatic and environmental scenarios. This technique can help in reducing the use of fossil or traditional fuels and infrastructure (greenhouses) that generate heat, expanding the agricultural frontier.

This article advances geographic scholarship about conservation and protected areas (PAs) through a focus on biocultural geographies. Biocultural geographies derive from relationships between heterogenous Indigenous stewardship practices, biological diversity, and trans-scalar multidimensional social, political, and ecological processes. The concept brings together insights from political ecology and biocultural conservation to address the interplay between environmental governance, cultural change, and biodiversity. We draw from collaborative, transdisciplinary research with Siona, Siekopai, and Cofán Indigenous communities in the northern Ecuadorian Amazon, a site of global importance for its biodiversity and cultural heritage. This is also a region of rapid and extensive social-ecological change driven by expanding agricultural frontiers, intensifying extractive industries, and new infrastructure development for regional integration. It is from this context that we call for a timely and critical conversation between human–environment geographers and the field of biocultural conservation, two approaches that have reshaped thinking about PAs and the role of Indigenous stewardship in an era of accelerating global challenges to social-ecological well-being. Data for our analysis derive from a multiyear study that investigates strategies used to ensure social-ecological well-being in the face of change. Our findings show that Siona, Siekopai, and Cofán stewardship sustains the biological diversity that characterizes many Amazonian PAs through locally adapted institutions based on knowledge, innovation, and practices they collectively hold. Such stewardship advances self-determination that challenges conventional conservation and PA models by centering Indigenous territorial governance.

Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) is predominantly cultivated in the Atlantic Forest biome. However, the recent expansion of agricultural frontiers in Brazil has led to its introduction into the Savannah biome. The commercial and technological quality parameters of wheat are determined by the interaction between genotype and growing environment. In this context, the objective of this study was to evaluate the effects of six wheat genotypes cultivated in five distinct environments, three located in the Atlantic Forest biome and two in the Savannah biome. The results demonstrated that environmental conditions significantly influenced protein and starch contents, which in turn affected hectoliter weight and falling number. On the other hand, genotypic variation had a marked effect on thousand-grain weight, colorimetric parameters (L* and b*), water and sodium retention capacities, dough tenacity and extensibility, as well as gluten strength. Wheat genotypes cultivated in the Savannah biome exhibited superior baking performance and technological quality, characterized by elevated starch content, enhanced gluten strength (with the exception of the genotype Feroz), and greater dough tenacity (except for the genotype Guardião), when compared to those cultivated in the Atlantic Forest biome. These results highlight the potential for identifying more sustainable cultivation environments, considering the different biomes, for the production of wheat with superior nutritional and technological quality, promoting the efficient use of natural and economic resources throughout the production cycle.

Since the early 2000s, sustainable development in agriculture has attracted substantial political attention, institutional support, and financial commitment, raising expectations for tangible outcomes. Yet, measurable progress remains uneven. As a leading food exporter, Brazil, in particular, has come under global scrutiny for practices deemed unsustainable—such as deforestation, excessive use of agrochemicals, and socio-environmental conflicts—despite its agricultural sector being a vital contributor to global food security. To provide policymakers with a robust monitoring tool, this study develops a nonlinear regression model that quantifies rural sustainability across economic, social, and environmental dimensions. We selected seven indicators—gross value added, average rural income, life expectancy, schooling years, preservation-area deficit, legal-reserve deficit, and water-scarcity deficit—to compute individual sub-indexes. These are combined into a composite rural sustainability index and applied to data from 141 municipalities in Mato Grosso. The results demonstrate that only municipalities achieving high and balanced scores in all three pillars can be deemed sustainable. Our framework contributes to the growing body of triple-index methodologies by offering a replicable, statistically robust tool tailored to agrarian contexts. It provides actionable insights for regional decision-makers aiming to balance productivity, environmental preservation, and social well-being in agricultural frontier regions.

The expansion of commodity agriculture into tropical and subtropical woodlands degrades ecosystem functionality, biodiversity, and the livelihood base of millions of people. Understanding where and how agricultural frontiers emerge is thus important. Yet, existing monitoring approaches typically focus on mapping deforestation and do not capture the shifts in land access and ownership that lay the ground for agricultural expansion, thereby missing early stages of frontier development. We develop an approach that captures these early dynamics and apply it to the entire 1,1 million km2 of the Chaco, a global deforestation hotspot. Through the detection of linear features indicative of land claims and the analysis of their spatial-temporal dynamics, we reveal that the footprint of agricultural frontiers in the region extends far beyond that of deforestation. Most of the Chaco shows signs of land claiming, and although claiming activity is especially concentrated close to active deforestation, emergent claiming in remote parts of the Bolivian and Paraguayan Chaco indicates rapidly growing interest in land in these regions. Finally, the strong spatial correlation between land claiming and the disappearance of smallholder homesteads points to the social repercussions of early agricultural frontier expansion in the Chaco. By offering a transferable template to map land-control indicators at scale, our approach enables a better understanding of frontier processes and more accurate targeting of policy interventions in emerging agricultural frontiers globally.

Abstract Transitional climate zones between humid and semiarid regions are particularly vulnerable to climate change. Agricultural expansion in these zones over recent decades poses high risks for environmental degradation. The Pampean region in South America, a leading global agricultural area, faces productivity impacts from climate change and the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phenomenon, especially in the semiarid frontier. Our study aimed to (i) explore the associations between precipitation and crop yields over recent decades at a fine spatial scale and (ii) develop a spatiotemporal model of precipitation and its relationship with a quantitative multivariate ENSO index (MEI). We used monthly precipitation data from 74 rain gauges and crop yield data at the departmental level from 1965 to 2014. The relationship between MEI and precipitation was estimated using a Bayesian technique for mixed models [integrated nested Laplace approximation (INLA)]. The average correlations between yield and precipitation were moderate (0.41–0.47) with spatial variations among crops. Wheat showed the highest number of significant correlations (94%) with annual precipitation, reaching coefficients of 0.65. Sunflower showed correlations in fewer southern departments (60%), while maize and sorghum correlated better with growing season precipitation (September–March) and a higher number of departments (73%–87%). The MEI-estimated coefficient obtained from the spatiotemporal INLA model was 38 mm (24–58 mm) for growing season precipitation. Interpolated precipitation maps revealed a regional pattern following a southwest-to-northeast gradient. However, this pattern exhibited variability and inconsistency across different years and ENSO phases, underscoring the influence of random effects.

Agriculture and livestock farming are fundamental to the Brazilian economy and have modernized with advanced technologies, expanding their activities through the conversion of native areas. To preserve the native vegetation of biomes, Brazil updated its Forest Code in 2012, establishing the Rural Environmental Registry (CAR). This instrument aims to compile information from rural properties, creating an essential database for environmental and economic control, monitoring, planning, and combating deforestation. Thus, this article measures and evaluates the impact of the CAR on deforestation and environmental compliance in rural properties in the Central-West region of Brazil, a significant agricultural frontier in grain production for the commodities market, with municipalities located in the Legal Amazon. Using the Difference-in-Differences method proposed by Callaway and Sant'Anna (2021), the results indicated a reduction in deforestation for small properties registered in 2015 and 2016. Regarding environmental compliance, there was an increase in the likelihood of being in compliance with the law from the fourth year onward for small properties, during which period there was also a reduction in deforestation.

This documentary analysis examines the diverse ways of understanding and interpreting the concept of landscape in relation to cultural heritage in Andean territories, such as South American paramos and the Altiplano Cundiboyacense in Colombia, during the last decade (2010–2020). Differences are identified in the dynamics in the spaces declared as cultural landscapes, influenced by how they are lived, inhabited, and traveled through, as well as by the initiatives that regulate their protection and safeguarding. In the paramos of South America, there is tension between environmental and governmental institutions and the community organizations that inhabit them, due to the specific conditions of these territories as environmental reserves. These territories, making up 2% of the planet’s territory, are characterized by their water sources and require special attention. However, to date, they have not been sufficiently protected against mining exploitation, tourism as the main economic activity, and the extension of the agricultural frontier, in addition to the lack of recognition of the communities inhabiting them. Currently, the aim is to reach an agreement among the different parties and reconcile a co-responsible interrelationship to guarantee their protection by integrating Indigenous and peasant environmental dynamics that are still unknown as intangible cultural heritage of these environments. In the Colombian Altiplano Cundiboyacense, home to 50% of the paramos, various initiatives have been implemented to harmonize government legislation with the forms of social organization of the communities living there. These initiatives have the potential to strengthen new economies based on the richness of the territory, the ecosystem, and the knowledge of its inhabitants, constituting alternatives in the fight against climate change. However, the lack of articulation of socio-cultural dynamics has prevented their consolidation.

A geospatial insight into farmland abandonment in Matopiba: the emerging frontier of Brazilian agriculture

Environmental health literacy (EHL) is essential for individuals to protect themselves from environmental health risks. Indigenous populations are particularly vulnerable to these risks, given the historical threats they have suffered from the advance of agricultural frontiers and impacts of deforestation, mining, and extreme weather events. This study investigates the dimensions of EHL among indigenous communities in Brazil, considering the scarcity of research in this field. Using a scale adapted to measure EHL in topics such as air, water, and food, it was possible to access the EHL levels of a sample of different Brazilian indigenous ethnic groups. Statistical analysis included descriptive methods and the Wilcoxon and Kruskal-Wallis tests. The results revealed significant variations in EHL levels, influenced by factors such as gender, place of residence, age, education, access to health services, and potable water. In addition, the presence of traditional actors, such as midwives, was identified as an important factor in the transmission of health knowledge. The research highlights the need for public policies that respect the cultural specificities of indigenous communities and promote self-care and environmental preservation, contributing to the development of culturally sensitive public health strategies.