Out of the Woods? The Long-Term Costs of Biodiversity Loss for Brazil’s Agricultural Sector

Alessa Widmaier

Cambridge Working Papers in Economics from Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge

Abstract: This paper constructs a novel biodiversity dataset for Brazil, measuring the annual change in species richness during 1985-2020 at 300m resolution. It then uses a spatio-temporal ARDL model to establish the long-run effects of bio-diversity loss on agricultural yields. Brazil lost 8 percentage points in species richness compared to an undisturbed baseline during 1985-2020, largely driven by substantial reductions in regions bordering the Amazon. Long-run crop yields decreased up to 4% for every percentage point in biodiversity loss, and up to 10% when considering pest control species. Resulting soybean and maize yield decreases reduced agricultural GDP by 15.3% in 2020.

Keywords: Biodiversity; Crop Yields; Agriculture; Autoregressive Distributed Lag Model (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C23 C82 O13 Q11 Q57 R14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025-03-26
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cam:camdae:2543

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