TITLE:
Land Use Capability and the Sustainable Scale: An Overview of Agriculture in São Paulo State, Brazil
AUTHORS:
Oscar Sarcinelli, Ademar Ribeiro Romeiro, Lauro Charlet Pereira, Sergio Gomes Tosto
KEYWORDS:
Land Use Planning, Land Capability, Agricultural Sustainability
JOURNAL NAME:
Natural Resources,
Vol.13 No.8,
August
22,
2022
ABSTRACT: Establishing a sustainable scale in natural resources management enables
effective economic and ecological policies and guarantees the long-term
sustainability of economic production. In agriculture, land evaluations
determine the land use sustainable scales, that is, those that avoid land
degradation and allow the provision of food, wood, energy, and ecosystem
services over time. The paper assessed São Paulo State’s agricultural
sustainability by analyzing the current land use adequacy to the land use
capability map that follows FAO 1976 “guide for land evaluation” and was
applied to São Paulo by the State Agricultural Secretariat. Results indicate
inefficiencies in land use at the state level, where more than one-third of
agricultural lands do not satisfy technical land capability indications.
According to technical land use capability, more than 4.5 million hectares are
being underused (economic inefficiency) and another 2.2 million hectares are
being overused (environmental inefficiency). Pasturelands represent the most
unsustainable land use, where 3.7 million hectares are allocated in high quality
lands with high agricultural production potential, and another 0.7 million
hectares are allocated in lands with very low quality for agriculture, most of
than area degraded. To achieve sustainability, lands
with high agricultural production potential should be used to improve
agriculture and food production and, on the other hand, lands with very low agricultural production potential
should be used for wood production, agroforestry, ecotourism and natural
ecosystems conservation. Our results provide
a framework for improving land use policies in São Paulo State and
highlight an opportunity to achieve land use sustainability.