Cattle ranching occupies 64% of Brazil’s agricultural area but contributes only 17% of the sector’s gross production value, reflecting inefficient land use and structural challenges. An unprecedented study by the Amazônia 2030 project analyzes the expansion of cattle ranching between 2000 and 2023 and points to pathways to transform the sector, ensuring greater productivity and sustainability.

The survey highlights that 64% of pastures (105 million hectares) are of low or intermediate quality and that the sector was responsible for 51% of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions, mainly due to deforestation. Between 2000 and 2023, Brazilian cattle ranching made important gains in productivity, driven by economic incentives and environmental pressures, but it still faces structural bottlenecks.

The study, conducted by researchers Paulo Barreto, Arthur José da Silva Rocha, Amintas Brandão, Ritaumaria Pereira, and Gabriel Salles Barreto, notes that policies such as the Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Deforestation in the Legal Amazon (PPCDAm) and the Soy Moratorium reduced deforestation by about 80% between 2003 and 2012, encouraging more productive practices. However, the growth of the activity still pressures the forest: for every hectare of pasture rehabilitated in Brazil, one hectare of forest was cleared; in the Amazon, that number rises to 2.35 hectares. By contrast, only 0.2% of degraded pastures were rehabilitated.

The research also shows that while the supply of rural credit has grown, it remains poorly distributed. In 2023, only 23% of resources were applied to productivity—such as pasture recovery and artificial insemination—while most was directed to cattle purchases, without robust environmental or productivity targets.

With a stock of R$ 1 trillion in subsidized private credit without sustainability requirements, the study underscores that there is enormous potential to leverage more responsible practices in the sector.

Recommendations for a more sustainable sector
The study proposes a set of recommendations to reverse this situation, including:

– Strengthening efforts to combat deforestation and ensuring the proper allocation of public lands;
– Conditioning rural credit on productivity and sustainability targets, with technical assistance for small and medium producers;
– Directing infrastructure and incentives to priority areas where pasture recovery is more feasible;
– Expanding transparency in the supply chain, ensuring traceability of cattle origin and greater commitment from meatpackers and investors to sustainable practices.

“Over the past 23 years, the expansion of cattle ranching shows that it is possible to increase productivity while reducing deforestation through practical incentives and environmental enforcement. However, failures in public and private policies have prevented faster, broader, and longer-lasting progress in best practices. As a result, nearly half of pastures are degraded while deforestation for cattle ranching continues. In the face of an intensifying climate crisis, especially reduced rainfall, opportunities for the productive use of degraded pastures tend to shrink dramatically. Global warming follows immutable physical laws: the higher the greenhouse gas emissions, the faster and more intense climate change will be. Therefore, politicians and business leaders cannot hesitate. Only through robust and committed collaboration will it be possible to mitigate the environmental impacts of cattle ranching and promote sustainable development in territories where the activity still operates with low productivity,” the study emphasizes.