Research helps ILPF systems meet environmental impact assessment criteria

Embrapa researchers analyzed a reference establishment in Crop-Livestock-Forest Integration (ILPF) in relation to sustainability, to serve as a demonstration unit for sustainable intensification.

To carry out this analysis of the ILPF's socio-environmental performance, adopted by the project 12 years ago, they used Environmental Impact Assessment (AIA) criteria, according to the Ambitec-Agro indicator system at Fazenda Boa Vereda, in the municipality of Cachoeira Dourada, Goiás.

According to the researchers, the goal was to offer, immediately from the EIA, environmental management recommendations based on an integrated vision of rural establishments, in addition to verifying the hypothesis that the adoption of ILPF systems generates positive technological and socio-environmental impacts. “Such assessments fulfill important objectives, such as proposing good management practices, improving production efficiency, controlling pollution and minimizing negative impacts”, they say in a recently released publication.

The work details a broad set of aspects and indicators, in a multi-criteria approach, and is accompanied by the operational system used to obtain evidence in the field, analysis, interpretation and communication of sustainability indices, serving as a methodological transfer instrument and a guide for similar exercises. “With this, it contributes to expanding the information base for sustainable, environmentally healthy, economically prosperous, and socially favorable agriculture”, they emphasize.

Embrapa Environment researcher Claudio Buschinelli, first author of the work, explains that “EIA are configured as a set of procedures suitable for promoting the environmental management of rural establishments and for making decisions regarding the adoption of technological innovations, which favor the socio-environmental performance of productive activities, including those characteristics of ILPF, aiming to meet sustainability criteria”.

He informs that 153 technology transfer actions were carried out by Fazenda Boa Vereda over the last 12 years, focusing on training and updating consultants, businesspeople, students, extension workers, employees of research and rural credit development agencies, researchers , rural producers, teachers, technicians, among other professionals in the agricultural sector. “These activities were divided into six categories: courses, field days and technical visits, journalistic articles, lectures, awards and institutional videos.

After adopting ILPF practices, Fazenda Boa Vereda became a Technological Reference Unit (URT), with its positive technological and socio-environmental results as an example for other ventures. Because of this, the property was one of nine winners of the 'Climate Positive Leaders Program 2021', a Corteva Agriscience farmer and rancher recognition initiative dedicated to designing farmers who successfully adopt a wide range of innovative systems and approaches, which uniquely support your productivity goals while protecting land and water, climate-positive practices.

According to the researchers, the adoption of the ILPF system in Boa Vereda arose from the need to diversify the farm's production, which today plants soybeans, corn, millet, eucalyptus, grass and raises beef cattle, given its previous economic dependence exclusively on livestock farming. extensive and low-yield, an important source of income in the region in the past, and which in recent years has been pressured by sugarcane activity, as a result of the installation of sugar and alcohol plants in the region.

In this way, they inform that “the quality of the products has generally been maintained, as is current practice, but with reduced exposure to chemical residues and with wood processing as a post-harvest activity, and in some cases the removal of the bark promotes greater input of organic matter in production areas”. The researchers also highlight that the meat produced by the herd in the ILPF system is aligned with the name of Carne Carbono Neutro, a conceptual brand of adding value to this product, launched by Embrapa.

Research at URT contributes to achieving Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 12, on the United Nations agenda, with a focus on goal 12.2 – 'By 2030, achieve sustainable management and efficient use of natural resources', by provide management recommendations for the environmental management of rural establishments, as well as offering a structured procedure for recording, interpreting and communicating sustainability.

Ambitec Agro

The Environmental Impact Assessment System for Agricultural Technological Innovations (Ambitec-Agro) aims to assist agricultural R&D institutions in the evaluation of research projects, as well as rural producers and decision makers in choosing the best practice options, forms of management and technologies aimed at the sustainable development of rural activities.

It consists of a set of multi-criteria matrices that integrate performance indicators of technological innovations and management practices adopted when carrying out rural activities. Seven essential evaluation aspects are considered: Use of Inputs and Resources; Environmental Quality; Respect for the Consumer; Job; Income, Health; and Management and Administration.

The criteria and indicators are constructed in weighting matrices in which data obtained in the field, from the producer/administrator of the establishment, are automatically transformed into impact indices expressed graphically.

The results of impact assessments allow the producer/administrator to determine which management practices promote the performance of their activity. For decision makers, managers and organizations, they enable the indication of measures to promote or control the adoption of technologies, according to sustainable local development plans and, finally, they provide an objective unit of measurement of impact, assisting in the qualification, selection and transfer of agricultural technologies.

“In view of the flexibility in the face of the most varied productive contexts found in the diverse Brazilian rural environment, the application and consequent dissemination of such methods among reference rural establishments allow, in addition to the necessary confirmation of their technical value, the exercise of promotion and communication on production systems that prove to be sustainable”, emphasizes researcher Geraldo Stachetti Rodrigues, one of the developers of the Ambitec-Agro method.

They are authors of 135 Documents researchers Claudio Cesar de Almeida Buschinelli (Embrapa Meio Ambiente), Cristiane Aparecida Fioravante Reis, Alisson Moura Santos, Abílio Rodrigues Pacheco (Embrapa Florestas) and Geraldo Stachetti Rodrigues (Embrapa Meio Ambiente). The publication is available for download here