Modelling integrated sugarcane-livestock systems in Brazil

• Grant number: 22/08629-4
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: August 01, 2022
• End date: July 31, 2024
• Field of knowledge: Agronomical Sciences - Agronomy - Soil Science
• Principal Investigator: Luís Gustavo Barioni
• Grantee: Júnior Melo Damian
• Host Institution: Embrapa Agricultura Digital. Empresa Brasileira de Pesquisa Agropecuária (EMBRAPA). Ministério da Agricultura, Pecuária e Abastecimento (Brasil). Campinas , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 17/11523-5 - Sugarcane - livestock integration: modeling and optimization, AP.BIOEN.TEM

Abstract

Brazilian cattle production is characterized by pasture-based systems, with low inputs and low productivity (Ferraz & Felicio, 2010) with a lot of opportunities for attending the future demand in a smaller area (Strassburg et al., 2014). However, high environmental impacts pose a major thread to the competitiveness of the Brazilian cattle production, particularly for beef exports. The sustainable intensification of agriculture (SAI) has been proposed as way to reduce the environmental impacts of agricultural production while accommodating the growing demand for food and biofuels. In the case of livestock, key SAI measures are the direct restoration of degraded pastures (DPR) and indirect restoration, the latter through the integration of crop-livestock (CLI) systems or Crop-Livestock-Forest Integrated (CLFI) systems. A promising CLI system consists of the integration of sugarcane and livestock (SLI). SLI could mitigate or neutralize cattle production displacement and its effects on deforestation (de Oliveira Silva et al., 2016; Lapola et al., 2014) and the competition with food production, and reducing livestock emission intensities for both products. Furthermore, indirect restoration through SLI can benefit of sugarcane and corn coproducts that can be used as ingredients to cattle ration (Bremer et al., 2010). This work will investigate the cost-effectives and mitigation potential of DPR, CLI, CLFI and SLI in areas around ethanol-producing mills through a system's approach by including changes in soil carbon dynamics and the effect of use of industrial byproducts in diet formulation through optimization and simulation models coupled with lifecycle analysis. (AU)