The role of large slaughterhouses on sustainable intensification of cattle ranching in Amazonia and Cerrado

• Ano de defesa: 2018
• Autor(a) principal: Santos, Ana Beatriz dos
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Tipo de acesso: Acesso aberto
• Idioma: eng
• Instituição de defesa: Universidade Federal de Viçosa
• Palavras-chave em Português: Pecuária - Aspectos ambientais - Amazônia; Matadouros; Cerrados; Sustentabilidade; Impacto ambiental; Gases estufa; Biomas; Climatologia
• Link de acesso: http://www.locus.ufv.br/handle/123456789/20364

Due to their location at the agricultural frontier, their interactions with ranchers and their market domination, large slaughterhouses are potential leverage points in the beef supply chain for achieving sustainable beef production in Brazil. However, their actual role in promoting sustainable production has not yet been ascertained. This dissertation analyzes changes after the start of operation of several large slaughterhouses for five variables: three related to agricultural intensification – protein and calorie production from crops and cattle stocking rate – and two related to environmental impact – land use change rate and greenhouse gas emissions. I focus my analysis on the large slaughterhouses located in the two most important Brazilian biomes for cattle ranching, Amazonia and the Cerrado. First, I selected 12 large slaughterhouses that started operations midway between 2000 and 2013, and I delimited their influence zones. Second, I delimited control zones in regions far from the influence of large slaughterhouses and outside conservation units and indigenous lands. Next, I calculated changes in the five study variables over the study period. In the Amazon, the results show a reduction of the land use change rate and greenhouse gas emissions in both the influence zones and the control zones. For the intensification variables, protein and calories from crops increased significantly in both zones, while the stocking rates do not change in the zones under slaughterhouse influence. In the Cerrado, all variables show the same responses in both the influence and control zones. These results do not support the idea that the large slaughterhouses promote either intensification of cattle ranching or improvements in the sustainability of cattle ranching activity in the Amazon and the Cerrado.