Brazil's current and future land balances: Is there residual land for bioenergy production?

Highlights

• This study presents a new database of land use categories in Brazil at a spatial resolution of 30 arc-second (about 1 km²).

• Spatial allocation algorithms were applied to obtain a spatial distribution of seven major land use categories.

• Results indicate a total of 84 Mha residual land of which 37 Mha was neither legally protected nor highly biodiverse.

• Almost one third of these “available residual land” areas would be very suitable or suitable for crop production.

• Almost half of “available residual land” occurs in the southeast where it occupies almost 20% of land.

• Food-fuel competition analysis suggests that productivity improvements on current pastures could accommodate land demand.

• Residual land could provide areas for the sustainable expansion of biofuel feedstock production.

Abstract

This study presents a new database of land use categories in Brazil at a spatial resolution of 30 arc-second (about 1 km²). The spatial representation of current major land uses formally combines agricultural statistics from Brazil's latest census of the year 2006 at micro-region level and the Food and Agriculture Organization 2010 forest statistics with spatial land cover data sets. Spatial allocation (“downscaling”) algorithms were applied to obtain a spatial distribution of seven major land use categories. Remaining shares in each grid-cell were termed residual land, and were categorized according to legal protection status, biodiversity value, and whether they belong to the territory of the Amazon biome. We found a total of 84 Mha residual land of which 37 Mha occurred outside the territory of the Amazon biome and was neither legally protected nor categorized as highly biodiverse land. The 37 Mha “available residual land” equates to 4.4% of Brazil's geographical area and to 50% of its current cultivated land area. We assessed land quality using the Agro-ecological Zones modelling framework provides land suitability and productivity estimates of the available residual land. Nearly one-third of land emerged of prime quality and is therefore promising for biofuel feedstock production. Analysis of potential food-fuel competition suggests that until 2030 productivity improvements on current pastures could accommodate land demand for Brazil's increasing cattle herd and expanding croplands. If these productivity increases could be achieved on current agricultural land, residual land could provide areas for the sustainable expansion of biofuel feedstock production.

Introduction

Demographic changes and economic growth will cause a more than a doubling of world transport capacity over the next half-century and substantially increase demand for fuel, particularly in the developing countries [1]. The combustion engine will continue to be a dominant engine system for many years to come, especially for freight transport. The automotive industry is therefore interested in finding alternative fuels — especially biofuels — for combustion engines.

With demand for liquid biofuel on the world market increasing, Brazil, today's largest producer and consumer of sugarcane ethanol, is considered a major potential supplier of biofuels to the world market. Brazil has large land endowments and technologically advanced sugarcane agro-industries that have been developed since the 1970s. These place Brazil in a leading position to produce biofuels economically, and this implies a substantial potential for mitigating anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Food security and promotion of renewable energy, including modern uses of biomass as a source of energy, are key global goals. This raises the important question as to whether it is possible to integrate these goals into strategies for sustainable land use.

The amount of land resources that can be dedicated to agricultural land expansion for biofuel feedstock production may be limited and needs to be assessed in depth [2]. Doubts have been raised regarding as to whether direct and indirect land use changes can help mitigate GHG emissions [3]. There are also questions about the potential environmental, social and economic impacts of growing biofuels; for example, the competition they pose to the food supply, the risks of reducing biodiversity, the impacts on water availability and quality, and the lack of benefits to those directly affected by large-scale introduction of biofuel production [4].

Brazil is endowed with significant land resources and is a land use change hot spot; these challenges for Brazil thus have both local and global dimensions [5]. Brazilian agriculture covers about one-fourth of the country's territory; it has expanded substantially during recent decades and is expected to expand further in response to the growing demand for food, livestock feed, and liquid biofuel feedstocks [6]. At the same time, safeguarding biodiversity-rich ecosystems and the avoidance of GHG emissions from deforestation and land use change are essential for achieving sustainable land use.

Securing food production involves both meeting the increasing demand locally for a rapidly growing middle class and serving the growing markets for export of agricultural commodities. Brazil is spearheading the development of sugarcane-derived ethanol for the country's growing fleet of flex-fuel vehicles and increasing world market demands. Today the vast majority of liquid biofuel feedstocks, primarily sugarcane for ethanol production, are benefiting from the favorable climatic conditions of Brazil's southeast and central-east regions. Brazilian sugarcane based bioethanol production in 2013 was 28 billion litres [7]. In view of the envisaged expansion of sugarcane, the Brazilian government conducted a study to identify new areas suitable for sugarcane production [8].

Brazil began biodiesel production in 2006 and has since increased its installed production capacity rapidly in response to envisioned mandates. Soybean is by far the most important source for biodiesel production (72%) followed by animal fats (24%) and cotton seeds (2%) [7].

In 2010 the biodiesel use mandate was set at 5%; since November 2014 a 7% mandate has been set. Industry has long requested an increase in the biodiesel blend, as capacity is more than twice the actual production goals. In 2013, 2.9 billion litres of biodiesel transport fuel were sold, supplying 5% of the diesel market in Brazil.

In addition to increased blending mandates, new guidelines have been proposed that favors the production of biofuel feedstock in underutilized or degraded pasture land and rain-fed cropland [2]. Suitability of land for biofuel production strongly depends on local biophysical conditions (climate, soil, terrain) and management regimes (input level, pesticide and weed control, machinery). Regional planning for biofuel feedstock expansion or intensification must account for the spatial (and temporal) variations of biofuel feedstock suitability and productivity in order to maximize energy return effectiveness per land area while minimizing GHG emissions [9].

For these reasons, the large automobile company Daimler AG launched a project in cooperation with the International Institute for Applied System Analysis (IIASA) and the Technical University of Berlin to assess biofuel feedstock production potentials, while taking into account the following sustainability criteria:

The production of biofuels (i) excludes competition with food, livestock feed and fiber supply; (ii) neither directly nor indirectly results in deforestation; (iii) does not encroach in legally protected areas; (iv) does not cause biodiversity loss; (v) does not compete for scarce fresh water resources: (vi) will not cause land degradation and reduces GHG emissions, in spite of increased fertilizer use and/or land use conversion to biofuel feedstocks.

To comply with the first four of these sustainability criteria an important first step is to assess the availability and quality of available land resources in Brazil. Research presented in this paper provides: (i) spatially detailed land balances to identify residual land; (ii) assessments of quality of residual land for agricultural purposes, and (iii) analysis of potential food-fuel competitions in residual land resources.