Effects of biofuel production on land use change in Brazil

Background/Question/Methods

There has been a good amount of discussion about the direct and indirect impacts of biofuels on deforestation in the Tropics. Although conversion of natural vegetation caused by growing demand for renewable fuels is expected to increase, the current influence of biofuel production in deforestation trends is uncertain. We use official data from the Brazilian Government about biofuels and deforestation in the past decade to analyze the direct and indirect impacts impact on land conversion in Brazil.

Results/Conclusions

The biofuels produced in Brazil are ethanol derived from sugarcane and biodiesel produced from soybean oil. During the time frame of this analysis (2002-2008) sugarcane crops expanded 3.03 million hectares and soybeans 4.07 million hectares. Our spatial analyses showed that most of the sugarcane extended over already converted areas (almost 2/3 in São Paulo State, replacing cattle ranching). The expansion of soybean probably caused direct conversion (3 million hectares) in the Amazon and, most definitely in the Cerrado wher 1.8 million hectares of deforestation occurred in municipalities along the agricultural frontier. Even so, it is unlikely that the production of biodiesel was the main driver of conversion. The production of vegetable oil represents just part of the income from soybeans and only 1/5 of it was transformed in biodiesel in the past years. Biofuel from soybean is not economically viable with the current prices of petroleum but the demand for biodiesel is maintained by the Brazilian government via its goal to increase the amount of biodiesel mixed in with petroleum diesel. Currently, this petroleum/biodiesel mix has 5% of the fuel coming from renewable sources. In 2008 this production was the equivalent of what was produced on 500,000 hectares (around 10% of the total crop area in Brazil). These results present the current trends. The growing demand for fuel and increases in the price of petroleum can have a great impact in the deforestation in Brazil. It is also important to consider the replacement of cattle ranching by sugarcane crops can increase the demand for further conversion of natural vegetation along the agriculture frontier. We are investigating possible methodologies to detect if this change in land use promotes deforestation in other areas because of displacement of production (leakage).