Amazon fires threaten Brazil's agribusiness

The newly published article by Arruda, Cândido & Fonseca (1) reports the possible negative impacts of the Amazon fires in August 2019 on the Brazilian agribusiness, mainly for the European market. However, it is important to address some additional issues before defining if agribusiness will be really harmed.
First, the expectations for meat export increased due to the bilateral trade agreement between European Union and Mercosur (trade bloc of which Brazil is part of), signed in June 2019. The European Union is the World’s largest agricultural importer, reaching $182 billion only in 2018. Brazil is one of their biggest commercial partners in this sector (2), so the reduction of tariffs can make it even more competitive in these exports, increasing the demand for production of agricultural goods (3). Despite the clauses focused on forest preservation, such as the requirement of ranchers to produce in a non-deforested area, this agreement can be harmful for forest preservation. The livestock is the biggest cause of deforestation in Legal Amazon, being responsible for 65% of vegetation loss (4). Besides, it is also responsible for near half of Brazilian greenhouse gases emissions, considering deforestation, pasture burning and bovine enteric fermentation (5). Thus, an increase in cattle exports may lead not only to an increase of deforestation, but also to an increase in greenhouse gases emissions, enhancing the local and global effects of climate change.
Another issue to be addressed is the fact that China is Brazil’s largest soybean import market. Soybean corresponds to 12% of all Brazilian exports, being currently the main export product of the country. In 2017, China was responsible for 79% of Brazilian soybean export (US$ 20.3 billion), while Europe was responsible for only 9.9% (US$ 2.56 billion) (6). Thus, even with a Europe retaliation to the Amazon fires, the soybean export will not be as affected as an eventual retaliation from Chinese market. Furthermore, the expectation is that the commercial war between United States and China have a positive effect on soybean exportation to China, since the increase of importation tariffs from China to American soy make it more expensive than the Brazilian one, stimulating a predicted increase of 39% on its production in the following years (7).
The incentive of the Brazil’s government for improving the agribusiness in detriment of Amazonia conservation, which arises from the strong presence of a “rural stand” in the Brazilian parliament, is also relevant for this subject. The agribusiness entrepreneurs represent 50% of Brazilian parliamentarians, with 257 from 513 seats, and 39.5% of the senators, with 32 from 81 seats. However, its frontiers displease the big cattle and soybeans producers that are currently dominant in Brazilian parliament. Thus, together with the Brazilian president, Jair Messias Bolsonaro, and considering their strong stand in Brazilian legislative, the agribusiness entrepreneurs are focusing on passing laws to benefit the agribusiness instead of promoting the conservation of the forest, promoting a dismantling of Brazilian environmental legislation and facilitating the Amazon deforestation (8, 9). Besides, they are also approving laws that go against the maintenance and establishment of new indigenous lands, which may have direct effects on climate and forest conservation, since these areas are important to buffer deforestation and local effects of climate changes (10).
The fires in the Amazon are likely to threat the agribusiness, as highlighted by Arruda, Cândido & Fonseca (1). However, the above-mentioned issues may overcome this threat, leading to an improvement of the Brazilian agrobusiness. Thus, it is important to sensitize the European and mostly the Chinese consumers about the agribusiness implications in Brazil, aiming to pressure the Brazilian government to approve laws that contribute to the decrease of Amazonia deforestation. The soy moratorium was a good example of environmental pact between entities representing the soybean producers in Brazil, non-governmental environmental organizations and the government predicting the adoption of measurements against Amazon deforestation. It lasted from 2006 to 2010 and contributed to the decrease of deforestation by maintaining soybean cultivation in areas not originated from deforestation (11). Besides, it is possible to improve the commodities without increasing deforestation (12), so actions should go towards improving agriculture land use to increase productivity per hectare, instead of deforesting and burn new areas.

References and Notes:
1. D. Arruda, H. G. Candido, R. Fonseca, Science (80-. ). 365, 1387–1388 (2019).
2. T. G. L. at H. University, International Trade Data (SITC, Rev. 2) (2019), doi:doi/10.7910/DVN/H8SFD2.
3. Brasil, Itamaraty (2019) (available at http://www.itamaraty.gov.br/images/2019/2019_07_03_-_Resumo_Acordo_Merco...).
4. C. C. Cerri et al., Sci. Agric. 66, 831–843 (2009).
5. M. M. C. Bustamante et al., Clim. Change. 115, 559–577 (2012).
6. Simoes, A. J. G. Hidalgo, C. A. Workshops at the twenty-fifth AAAI conference on artificial intelligence (2011) (available at https://oec.world/en/visualize/tree_map/hs92/export/bra/show/1201/2017/).
7. R. Fuchs et al., Nature. 567, 451–454 (2019).
8. D. Abessa, A. Famá, L. Buruaem, Nat. Ecol. Evol. (2019), doi:10.1038/s41559-019-0855-9.
9. E. J. de A. Pereira, P. J. S. Ferreira, L. C. S. Ribeiro, T. S. Carvalho, H. B. de B. Pereira, Environ. Sci. Policy. 100, 8–12 (2019).
10. L. Ferrante, P. M. Fearnside, Environ. Conserv., 1–3 (2019).
11. H. K. Gibbs et al., Science (80-. ). 347, 377–378 (2015).
12. T. S. Carvalho, E. P. Domingues, J. M. Horridge, Land use policy. 64, 327–341 (2017).