Brasília 5/6/2004 (Agência Brasil) - Brazil faces an enormous challenge: how to reconcile the expansion of its agricultural frontier with the preservation of the Amazon rainforest. According to official statistics, about 13% of the rainforest (around 65 million hectares) has already been destroyed and if the destruction continues at the same rate it has over the last five years, the area destroyed will almost double to around 22% of the rainforest by the year 2020.

According to the Brazilian Farm Research Corporation (Embrapa), one way to alleviate the problem is to recover and then reincorporate destroyed areas back into the productive system. That would be a form of development with conservation.

At the same time, Embrapa says it has technology available which could protect up to 75 million hectares from deforestation over the next 15 years. "Brazil has an efficient system of monitoring deforestation and burning in the Amazon. What we need is a system to monitor land usage in areas that have been cleared," says Judson Valentim, an Embrapa agronomist in the state of Acre. He adds that the first challenge in dealing with the expansion of cattle farms and increased deforestation is to gather more information on the potential and limitations of natural resources in the Amazon and make technology available.

Valentim says Embrapa will implement a strategic action plan which will study pastureland, recover degraded areas by planting native fruit trees and implant cattle breeding areas. The use of so-called alternative technologies, such as non-plowing farming, could increase productivity in areas that have already been cleared.

According to Valentim, proper use of the area of the rainforest already cleared (deforested or destroyed) in the Amazon could solve many problems. He points out that 20% of the area could produce 50 million tons of grains annually. Another 20% could be used for small farmers (around 900,000 of them if each got 20,000 hectares). The remaining 60% would be used to raise 100 million head of cattle. And all that, without cutting down a single, additional tree or burning so much as one hectare. "It is possible to strengthen farming in the Amazon through better land use in areas considered degraded. And that can be done without extending the destruction," he explains.

Translator:Allen Bennett