Good life in the Amazon? A critical reflection on the standard of living of cocoa and cattle-based smallholders in Pará, Brazil

Daniel P. P. Braga, Benno Pokorny, Roberto Porro and Edson Vidal

World Development Perspectives, 2023, vol. 31, issue C

Abstract: The balance between environment and economic stability is key to sustainable rural development. This is particularly true in the agricultural frontier areas along the Transamazon Highway and Southern Pará in the Brazilian Amazon, where thousands of migrant families have settled in the forests over the past 50 years in search of a better life. To better understand the extent to which sustainable development is possible in such a context, this study examined the standard of living that smallholders who grow cocoa can achieve compared to those who raise cattle, and what this means for forest conservation. An analysis of 95 households revealed that both livelihood strategies may generate an acceptable standard of living despite significant logistical and environmental challenges. This was observed even more so for families who combined both production systems. The availability of technology and the size of landholdings had the greatest impact on the standard of living expressed in income and housing conditions. The majority of the analyzed households, especially those involved in cattle ranching, converted their forests for economic success. The pure cocoa farmers behaved differently, but also cleared large areas of forest and may continue to do so. The findings suggest that achieving sustainable local development in Amazonian agricultural frontiers requires large and well-coordinated investments by competent public and private actors not only in building and optimizing sustainable production systems such as cocoa agroforestry but also in significantly improving social rural infrastructure.

Keywords: Family farming; Agroforestry; Trans-Amazonian Highway; Livelihoods; Cacao; Ranching (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S245229292300036X
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:wodepe:v:31:y:2023:i:c:s245229292300036x

DOI: 10.1016/j.wdp.2023.100520

Access Statistics for this article

World Development Perspectives is currently edited by Ashwini Chhatre

More articles in World Development Perspectives from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().