Amazonian Rainforest Essay

Human population has been steadily rising since the Industrial Revolution; the United Nations estimated that there were over 7.3 billion people in the world in 2015 and predicted that the population will rise to a potential maximum of 16.6 billion by 2100 (United Nations). Such an increase in population results in a similar rise in the demand for food. In order to avoid a potentially catastrophic famine, food production needs to increase in order to feed all of the new mouths without placing excessive financial burdens on families, and with the current shortage of available arable land, the Amazonian Rainforest is a tempting place to turn into agricultural lots. Although expanding agriculture into Amazonia appears to benefit the people by
producing more food, this plan poses several serious problems; thus, it is actually a net detriment to the people. Expanding agriculture into the rainforest would seem to fill more bellies, but in reality, fewer stomachs would actually be fed. In 2014, the UN removed Brazil from the World Hunger Map, and Social Development Minister Tereza Campello credited her country’s accomplishment to “a mix of public policies and an increased food supply” (“World Hunger Map”). Unsurprisingly, at least some of the “increased food supply” that Minister Campello refers to came from expanding agriculture in her country. Equally unsurprisingly, a significant portion of the expansion was in the Brazilian portion of the Amazon Rainforest. Arable land is increasingly becoming a premium in the world, and Amazonia is one of the few remaining large areas of uncultivated arable land available. The agriculture industry has certainly not ignored Amazonia, where four-fifths of the land cleared in the region is occupied by cattle ranches, which collectively host approximately 200 million cows (“Cattle Ranching”). According to classical economics, the market value of a commodity is inversely proportional to the supply of the commodity available in the market. Thus, an influx of 200 million cows into the beef market should theoretically result in a drop in the price of beef, making it more affordable. This economic conjecture is confirmed by observations made by Sergio Margulis, an environmental economist at the World Bank, who noted that “the expansion of the cattle herd in Amazonia has been largely responsible for beef prices dropping... recently” (15). Brazil, a country with many people in poverty, would certainly benefit from lower meat prices. Perhaps refusing to open up the Amazon to cattle would even be a crime against humanity because it would deprive the poor of cheap food. However, a team of American and Brazilian scientists would sharply disagree. The team used model simulations to predict the agricultural yields of Amazonian land; the model forecasted a 30 to 34 percent drop in the productivity of livestock pasture by 2050 as a result of decreased precipitation brought on by deforestation (Kirby). As a result of reduced agricultural yields, the researchers ominously deduce that “‘total agricultural output may either increase much less than expected proportional to the potential expansion in agricultural area, or even decrease, as a consequence of climate feedbacks from changes in land use’” (Kirby). If the net agricultural output grows much slower than expected from the rate of agricultural expansion, then ranchers must carve huge swaths of the rainforest in order to make a disproportionately small decrease in the price of beef. In the researchers’ worst case scenario, where agricultural yields actually decrease as a result of expansion, every cow would actually raise the price of beef. With roughly 200 million cows in the region, Minister Campello may only imagine the extent of the impact that such agricultural degradation would have on her constituents. In either case, the people are still hungry. If the goal of expanding agriculture into the rainforest is to feed more people, then it is clearly a self-defeating task. In addition to failing to fill stomachs, expanding agriculture takes the “forest” out of “rainforest,” which would deprive people, especially indigenous people, of valuable resources.
Ranching operations cannot be initiated on forested land, and ranchers must transform the rainforest into grassland in order to commence operations. Deforesting the Amazon produces timber as a byproduct. Margulis calculated the value of the timber to be USD $203 per hectare of rainforest (57). For loggers, ranchers, and other agri-businessmen, they may see no more value in the rainforest than the USD $203/ha. that can be profited from the wood. However, Ioulia Fenton, the leader of the food and agricultural research stream at the Institute of Advanced Developmental Studies in Bolivia, would see their evaluation as incredibly short-sighted. She informs that, when harvested sustainably, the rainforest offers an infinite supply of “fresh water; wild foods; crops and livestock; wild fisheries; wood for fire and construction; fibers and other materials for arts and crafts; and natural biomedicines and pharmaceuticals” (Fenton). For the local and indigenous populations who reside in Amazonia, the rainforest is their lifeline; it keeps their hunger satiated, their bodies healthy, their houses standing, and their cultures intact. To deprive them of their rainforest is to deprive them of their way of life. Throughout post-Columbian history in the New World, non-natives have often committed such
injustices against the local population, and the expanding ranchers are a present-day continuation of this trend of repression. Not only is the rainforest a treasure chest of material goods, Amazonia is also home to a stunning landscape. Rainforests are becoming ever more popular for tourists who seek recreation and sights inaccessible anywhere else (Fenton). The incredible aesthetic beauty of the rainforest is awe-inspiring and jaw-dropping. There are no substitutes. Meanwhile, ranches and open pasture fields are not in short supply, and they are certainly less appealing to tourists. Economists, capitalists, and agribusiness corporations might be unconvinced by the aesthetic and artistic arguments, but if they insist on seeing a practical, monetary benefit, Margulis calculates that ecotourism could generate as much as USD $9 per hectare of rainforest annually (53). Perhaps those wishing to make a buck off of the Amazon should open an ecotourism firm instead of cutting down the forest. Admittedly, cattle ranching, which produces net returns of approximately USD $30 (BRL $95.39) per hectare (Margulis 40), is more than three times more profitable. But tourists do not strip the rainforest of the indispensible resources that the locals rely upon. In addition, tourists spend money on goods and services while visiting the Amazon, which allows more wealth to flow into the hands of people who need the money to buy food. Deforestation itself produces more harm than good, and it cannot be justified as a side effect of the fruitless effort to expand agriculture in Amazonia.
Perhaps the case for expansion could be saved by the fact that agriculture creates local jobs; unfortunately, the benefits of creating employment by such a method is simply too marginal to be justifiable.
Between 1970 and 1995, the number of Amazonian residents earning less than the national average income fell from 100 percent to 80 percent, indicating “a not insignificant improvement in income levels” (Margulis 68). The logic of job creation makes sense; after all, someone must raise, tend, and slaughter all of the 200 million cows in the region, and the people who maintain the pastures receive money as compensation, which they can spend on food for their families. Unfortunately, the ranching industry simply doesn’t create enough jobs to feed everyone. According to Sergio Margulis, ranches typically create “an average of only 36 jobs per project” (49). In addition, cattle ranching is a low yield, low density operation (“Cattle Ranching”), meaning that ranchers produce only a small amount of agricultural output per unit area of arable land. According to the principle of economies of scale, such low density operations are too expensive to run if they are too small in size; therefore, economics forces the typical ranch to be large. This economic principle is visible in the real world: the average Amazonian ranch spans “several hundreds of hectares,” and “many ranches [reach] thousands of hectares” (“Cattle Ranching”). If a typical ranch contains hundreds of hectares of land
and employs only tens of people, then the average ranching operation employs less than one person per hectare of land. Such a low density of workers on a ranch implies that a huge chunk of deforested pasture only employs a handful of people. Although the increase in employment associated with agricultural expansion is beneficial to the people, the magnitude of the benefit is simply too small to outweigh the costs of such expansion.
Pushing agriculture into the Amazon Rainforest is a tempting proposition, but at the end of the day, such expansion only worsens people’s livelihoods. Food is indeed essential to life, and cheaper food is always desirable. However, wiping out swaths of valuable rainforests in a hopeless attempt to produce more food is simply not a viable solution.