What Drives Indirect Land Use Change? How Brazil's Agriculture Sector Influences Frontier Deforestation

Peter Richards

Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 2015, vol. 105, issue 5, 1026-1040

Abstract: From 2000 to 2005, high returns from soybeans set off an unprecedented expansion of agricultural production across Brazil. The expansion occurred concurrently with a sharp rise in deforestation, leading academics and policymakers to question the extent and means by which the growing agricultural sector was driving regional forest loss. In this article, I consider and question the underlying drivers of indirect land use change, namely the potential impact of soybean expansion on beef prices and of land use displacement, via migration. I then present field-level results documenting the displacement process in Mato Grosso and Pará States of the Amazon. These results question the extent to which tropical Amazon deforestation is attributable to land use displacement; however, I argue that the agricultural sector could drive deforestation through other channels, namely through regional land markets.

Date: 2015
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DOI: 10.1080/00045608.2015.1060924

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