Strategies for sustainable agricultural intensification in the Amazon and Cerrado biomes

Abstract

Livestock production has been a major economic booster in Brazil, however, the low investment of beef cattle production systems, which results in low productivity of the areas, has contributed to the change of land use in these biomes. Models that simulate the environmental impacts of beef systems are needed to better assess intensification strategies to improve systems sustainability. The Integrated Farm System Model estimates the biological and physical parameters of different farms modeling the interaction between soil, plant, animals, infrastructure, labor and capital. The objective of this study was to use a whole-farm modeling approach using the Integrated Farm System Model to evaluate its use in two tropical agricultural system biomes, the Cerrado and the Amazon, in the state of Mato Grosso, Brazil. The performance of the farm was simulated based on meteorological data collected on both properties between July 2015 and June 2018. Management techniques such as pasture fertilization, low grain supplementation and pasture reform contrasted with the extensive grazing in the IFSM, where better land use was observed with sustainable intensification systems and greater productivity efficiency per hectare and use of resources. The Integrated Agricultural System Model software can represent the systems located in tropical climates, which is different from the climatic conditions from where the model was originally developed and validated.