Resilience of Smallholder Farms in the Brazilian Cerrado:

An Interdisciplinary and Participatory Assessment Framework

Jennifer BleshAssistant Professor, School of Natural Resources

and EnvironmentUniversity of Michigan

5 May 2014

Agrarian Reform in the Cerrado

Socioecological Research in MT

Food System Resilience• Capacity to produce and access nutritious food in the face

of uncertainty, without diminishing other vital ecosystem services

• Ecologists have asked: Resilience of what to what? Can we manage for resilience?

• We are also asking: How? Resilience for whom? Who decides?

Participatory assessment of the resilience of food sovereignty practices Resilience includes adaptive capacity, transformative potential and human agency

Food Sovereignty• Transnational agrarian social movement that emerged in

mid-1990s (in response to inequity)• Calls for rights of farmers, fishers, and consumer-citizens

to determine food and agricultural policy and practice, respecting cultural and productive diversity

• Landless rural workers movement (MST)

The MST Promotes Agroecology• Food producing, biodiverse • Mixtures of perennials and annuals, including

horticulture, agroforestry, rotational grazing, etc.• Low external input• Target diverse markets: local market development,

social economy, emphasize social equity

Research Questions

What does the MST’s ideal model (agroecology and food sovereignty) look like in practice?

How do agroecological practices emerge in the Cerrado, and how are they sustained?To what effect?

Study Sites• Mato Grosso—42 MST-organized settlements, with a

total of 4,254 families

• Settlements sampled: Tangará da Serra and Mirassol D’Oeste/Araputanga (ARPA)

Mixed-methods Assessment• focus groups (n = 6)• participant observation • in-person farmer survey (n=60)• qualitative interviews (n = 30)

farm families networks that support family farming

• analysis of soil samples (n = 52 fields): particulate OM, C, N, and P

• quantification of indicators from sample and survey data

Indicators of ResilienceIndicator What was measuredIncome • Desired household income level

• Achieve desired income level through agriculture (Y/N)?

Food self-sufficiency • Household consumption levels of common foods• Source of foods (own production, settlement, market)

Agrobiodiversity • # of crops sold/season

Cropping Systems Management

• Characterizing crop rotations and cropping systems• Crop rotation, fertility amendments, reliance on legume N

Soil fertility/soil phosphorous (P)

• Basic characterization (pH, Total N, C, P, texture, etc.)• Particulate OM pools and C and N content

Political participation • Marketing structure• Cooperative or Individual

Technical Assistance • Access to technical assistance• Level of expertise/involvement

Milk Production • Pasture area (l/ha/year)• # cows (l/cow/year)

Descriptive Statistics: Farmer Survey          Median Mean SEFarmer/Household CharacteristicsYears of formal schooling 5 6.2 0.53Adults working on farm (#) 2 2.6 0.2Distance to nearest city (km) 39 39.5 3Labor (hours/week/household) 72 77.90 5.2

Land Use CharacteristicsSize of lot (ha) 25 30.5 1.8Annual crops (ha) 2 2.9 0.4Perennial crops (ha) 0.5 1.6 0.4Pasture (ha) 14.4 13.6 1.2Native forest or reserve (ha) 4.3 7.4 1.3Secondary forest or brush (ha) 2.9 5.2 0.9Certified organic (%) 35.6Dairy (%) 65.6Cows (#) 18 21 2.4Chickens (#) 35 57.9 16.8Pigs (#) 2 5.1 1.8

Marketing StrategiesTangará da Serra ARPA

Brazil: Fome Zero Programs• Agricultural Credit

New settlers, women, value-added and processing

• School Lunch Program: PNAE30% must be procured from small-scale farmers~2000 municipalities are participating

• Public Procurement: PAAGuaranteed markets for small scale productionDonated to schools, hospitals, food banks

Agrobiodiversity and Soil P

**

PAA Improves Several FS IndicatorsIndividualPAA participant

0 20 40 60 80 100

Food self-sufficiency

HH income

Technical assistance

Political participation

Milk production

CS management

Agrobiodiversity

Soil P

PAA Participation: 2010-2012

Source: CONAB contracts, 2010-2012

 Tangará da Serra ARPA

 

# % small farmers*

% all farmers

# % small farmers

*% all

farmers2010 159 5.2 3.3 201 4.7 3.42011 182 6.0 3.8 244 5.8 4.22012 119 3.9 2.5 357 8.4 6.1

* small-scale farms ≤ 50ha      

Challenges: PAA

• Labor for horticultural production• Lack of infrastructure/machinery

Distance from urban marketsPoor road and transportation conditionsLack of internet/phone service

• Lack of technical assistancePrior agricultural experience not in horticulture or marketingNew to regional/ecological knowledge

Concluding Thoughts• Learn from existing innovation

Agroecological production for local markets, especially through government purchasing programs (PAA)

• Multidimensional analysisIdentify successes, trade-offs, leverage points for food system transformation

• Cerrado is a challenging setting for the MST’s effortsBiophysical: climate change, dry season, soilsSocial: Regional socio-technical infrastructure supports commodity production (markets, roads, infrastructure)Knowledge systems and resources for agroecological production are weak in the Cerrado

Concluding Thoughts• Place-based resilience in Brazilian Cerrado:

Bottom up and top downPressure from agrarian movement intersecting with state policy changeStill missing infrastructure and knowledge “in the middle”

Thank You

• Hannah Wittman• José Fernando Scaramuzza• Wendy Wolford• Laurie Drinkwater• Farmer participants• Field and lab assistants• NSF IRFP (Project #: 1064807)

Mato Grosso Crop Production (ha)

Year1990 1995 2000 2005 2010

Thou

sand

hec

tare

s

0

1000

2000

3000

4000

5000

6000

7000cottonricesugar canesoybeanscorn

Data from IGBE, 2013

Indicator Units Raw Scale How optimum determined Min Max Opt. Household income Proportion of farmers achieving ideal

income through farming0 1 1 Farmer survey and focus group

questions about ideal income (Reais/month)

Food self-sufficiency Survey score based on whether none, some, most or all household food comes from the farm or community

0 39 39 Selected 100% of food from farm or neighbors (community)

Soil P % of sampled fields that have recommended soil P (Mehlich I mg kg-1)

0 100 100 Regional extension recommendations for clayey and sandy soils*

Agrobiodiversity Total number of crops sold/year 0 22 15 Selected 75% quartile of survey distribution

Cropping systems management

Survey score based on crop rotation, fertility inputs, and use of legume N sources

0 4 4 Highest possible score from suvey questions

Milk production liters/ha/year 85 3086 1200 Selected 75% quartile of distribution

Political participation Survey score based on type of markets 0 2 2 Highest possible score from survey question

Technical assistance Survey score based on access to assistance (frequency and quality)

0 2 2 Highest possible score from survey question

*Optimum concentration of Mehlich-I extractable P ranged from 6 - 25 mg kg-1 based on textural analysis (citation)

Indicators and Scale

Management Characteristics

Fertility inputs All PAA Non-PAAfertilizer (%) 18.6 10.5 33.3manure (%) 72.9 86.8 47.6legume (%) 42.4 39.5 33.3none (%) 15.3 10.5 23.8

Use of pesticides (%) 27.1 21 38.1

• Only seven of the sampled fields were in legume-based management

Food Self-Sufficiency%

of f

amili

es

0

20

40

60

80

100 all from farmall from settlement all from supermarket

Beans

RiceMilk

Beef

ChickenCorn

CassavaPork

EggsPasta

VegetablesFruit

Conceptual Model

Food Sovereignty

Ecological Resilience

Global

National/Regional

State/Landscape

Community/HH

WTO, climate variation

Govn’t subsidies and programs; conservation policies

soil quality, slope; infrastructure, roads

Land tenure, education, farm/field mgmt.

National PAA Trends

2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014

Tota

l Res

ourc

es (R

$)

700,000,000

600,000,000

500,000,000

400,000,000

300,000,000

200,000,000

100,000,000

0

Brazil: Institutionalizing Food Sovereignty

• The realization of the human right to adequate food and to food and nutritional security requires respect for sovereignty, that confers on countries the primacy of their decisions around the production and consumption of food. Law No. 11.346. September 15, 2006

• [through] promoting sustainable agro-ecological systems for producing and distributing food, that respect biodiversity and strengthen family agriculture, indigenous peoples, and traditional communities that ensure the consumption and access to adequate and healthy food, respecting the diversity of national food cultures . . . incorporating into State policy respect for food sovereignty and the human right to adequate food. Decree No. 7.272. August 25, 2010

Mato Grosso Crop Production (ha)

Year1990 1995 2000 2005 2010

Thou

sand

hec

tare

s

0

200

400

600

800 cottonricesugar cane

• Soil has OM pools with differing turnover times• Some pools are more responsive to management:

potential to manage pools with year to decadal turnover for internal nutrient cycling capacity

• POM is related to the mineralizable N pool• Size and density fractionation (Marriot and Wander,

2006) to separate free and occluded POMfPOM: macro + 250 – 500 μmoPOM: 53 – 250 μm

POM N: Indicator of soil fertility

Density and Size Fractionation

fields sampled%

cla

y0

20

40

60

80

100

Variability in Study Site Soils

fields sampled

% s

and

0

20

40

60

80

100

Antonio Conselheiro14 de AgostoFlorestan FernandesRoseli Nunes

Occluded POM and % Clay

soil % clay0 20 40 60 80 100

oPO

M (k

g ha

-1)

0

5000

10000

15000

20000

25000

30000

35000

40000

R2=0.26p=0.001y=221.4x + 7196

Increased N in organic matter