Integrated crop-livestock systems and climate change policies

Abstract

The Brazilian scenario for the agricultural activity expansion has generated economic returns to the country, but with high environmental liability. Within this context, the National Plan on Climate Change and the National Program for a Low Carbon Agriculture (LCA) were launched. This study aimed to simulate scenarios of agricultural production in the North-Central region of the Mato Grosso State, Brazil. By using linear programming models, the potential of crop-livestock integration (CLI) systems was evaluated as a low carbon emission alternative to the traditional agricultural systems in the region. The results showed that CLI systems cannot be considered an attractive alternative to the farmers, since there are production strategies that generate higher economic gains. Likewise, the tools implemented by the LCA program were not enough for promoting the agricultural production in CLI systems. The study also aimed to evaluate the impact of the Certified Emission Reduction (CER) in areas planted under CLI systems. The results showed that the carbon credit system can be an important fomenting tool, in which, at the rate of $ 25.00 per CER (1 ton of equivalent CO2), the producer could get expressive economic gains, due to the implementation of CLI systems.

Keywords

• Agriforestal systems
• linear programming
• carbon credit