Sustainable Grazing

Question 1

Identify the dominant grazing system used in the Amazon basin, and review the costs and benefits of that system

Answer 1

• Privatization → log → conversion

*Dominant grazing system used: continuous grazing

*Benefits: Low costs, few fences, low labor

• Costs: : Overgrazing stocking too heavy, Selective grazing

Question 2

Identify challenges specific to the tropical context that rancher face, and clarify how they typically maintain production levels

Answer 2

High rainfall → waterlogged conditions

Nutrient leaching (out of soil) → causes →
Declining forage biomass & carrying capacity

Grazing land should not occur here, environment is not adapted to this

Conventional approach: extensification

Question 3

Define and contrast extensification and intensification. Clarify how induced intensification meets environmentalists’ goals

Answer 3

*Extensification: conventional approach. Increase output by adding more land to the production system and convert more (new) land to grazing land

*Intensification: Increasing output per unit area

Goal: get people off track of extensive land use and get them instead to put more effort into getting more output per unit area, in a smaller area.

Question 4

Identify barriers specific to the tropical context that ranchers face in adopting intensive rotational grazing

Answer 4

Cost are ALOT higher: expensive soil amendments
new forage varieties

Short term costs are high. But, long term benefits are profitable → benefits of More, healthier, fatter cows

Question 5

Describe PECSA’s unique approach to addressing those challenges

Answer 5

PECSA fronts the cost of the process
Ranchers don’t have to worry about money, they will cover it→ through contracts, the ranchers pay them back over the course of 6 years through giving PECSA a share of their profits

Goal: slow down deforestation → using land that has already been deforested and getting more out of it