Technification in Dairy Farms May Reconcile Habitat Conservation in a Brazilian Savanna Region

Juliana Silveira dos Santos, Fausto Miziara, Hayla da Silva Fernandes, Renato Cezar Miranda and Rosane Garcia Collevatti
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Juliana Silveira dos Santos: Laboratório de Genética & Biodiversidade, Instituto de Ciências Biológicas, Universidade Federal de Goiás, Goiânia 74690-900, GO, Brazil
Fausto Miziara: Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ciências Ambientais, Universidade Federal de Goiás, Goiânia 74690-900, GO, Brazil
Hayla da Silva Fernandes: Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ciências Ambientais, Universidade Federal de Goiás, Goiânia 74690-900, GO, Brazil
Renato Cezar Miranda: Floresta Nacional de Silvânia, Instituto Chico Mendes de Conservação da Biodiversidade (ICMBio), Silvânia 75180-000, GO, Brazil
Rosane Garcia Collevatti: Laboratório de Genética & Biodiversidade, Instituto de Ciências Biológicas, Universidade Federal de Goiás, Goiânia 74690-900, GO, Brazil

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 10, 1-15

Abstract: The assessment of the relationships between farm management systems and nature conservation may help in the design of more efficient strategies to uphold economic benefits and biodiversity conservation. To our knowledge, this is the first work in Brazil to study the relationship between farm conservation status and technification level. Here, we test the hypothesis that dairy farms with higher levels of technification have a higher percentage of natural vegetation and connectivity, and that differences in environment features between farms explain their conservation status. We obtained variables related to the level of technification such as feed, milking, sanitary control and breeding management systems. We show that farmers with a higher level of technification, such as artificial insemination in cattle breeding, tended to conserve a higher percentage of natural vegetation, as well as larger farms with a higher percentage of riparian forest. The adoption of artificial insemination is associated with other technification systems such as a forage diet, milking method and frequency and sanitary control. It is also significantly related to higher milk productivity. Our novel results point to a positive effect of technification on the conservation of natural vegetation, suggesting that economic incentives and programs aimed at increasing technification in cattle breeding may increase dairy production and conservation within the study area. Our findings also show an effect of larger areas of riparian forests, which are protected by Brazilian policy, in the conservation status of dairy farms.

Keywords: agricultural landscapes; Conefor; connectivity; legal reserve; long-term ecological research; spatial-temporal heterogeneity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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