HOW DOES THE SUSTAINABLE RURAL PROJECT PROMOTE MOTIVATION FOR THE ADOPTION OF GOOD AGRICULTURAL PRACTICES?

Responsible researcher: Eduarda Miller Figueiredo

Intervention Location: Brazil

Sample Size: 350 farms

Sector: Environment

Variable of Main Interest: -

Type of Intervention: Information, technical assistance, credit and payment.

Methodology: Other

The Brazilian government is simultaneously seeking ways to reduce emissions from agricultural changes and guarantee the subsistence and well-being of rural producers. The Low Carbon Agriculture Plan was launched as a strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions using a low-interest rural credit line that encourages the implementation of good agricultural practices. The Sustainable Rural Project promotes low-carbon agricultural technologies aimed at small and medium-sized farmers. Through these programs, we seek to motivate farmers on private land to adopt good agricultural practices that will help mitigate climate change.

Policy Problem

In Brazil, agricultural production is responsible for 32% of domestic gas emissions, and it is estimated that such production will increase in the coming decades in the country. Such an increase is supported by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) [1] and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) [2] , as it will assist in the national economy, will meet the growing demand international trade for food and the country has committed to achieving such an increase in agricultural production in a sustainable way.

Therefore, the Brazilian government, as well as donor agencies, banks and NGOs, are looking for ways to reduce emissions from agricultural and land use changes, while ensuring the livelihood and well-being of rural producers.

Implementation and Evaluation Context

The Low Carbon Agriculture Plan (ABC Plan) was launched in 2010 as a strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This plan is a new line of rural credit with low interest rates that is intended to finance the implementation of good agricultural practices that contribute to the mitigation and adaptation to climate change through the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and/or carbon sequestration. .

In Brazil, low-carbon agricultural practices include the restoration of degraded forest areas, development of commercial planted forests, management of natural forests, development of integrated crop-livestock-forest systems, as well as non-forest technologies for the restoration of degraded pastures, biological nitrogen fixation, direct planting and manure management.

Policy/Program Details

Through loans from the ABC Program, more than R$13.2 billion reais were lent to rural producers (MAPA, 2016). However, the amounts borrowed in 2015-2016 were 45% lower than in 2014-2015, where this slowdown in the use of the program may be due to: (i) an increase in credit interest rates from 5% to 8% (on average); and/or (ii) the availability of other lines of credit that do not focus on low-carbon agricultural technologies, but have lower interest rates. This indicates that Brazil will fall below the stated targets for Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions [3] by 2020.

The Sustainable Rural Project promotes low-carbon agriculture, including forest restoration and management, through a set of mechanisms that help overcome barriers to participation in the ABC Plan and the ABC credit program. Facilitating access to information, assistance, rural credit and financial incentives.

The Project creates conditions for different mechanistic approaches to interact and thus complement each other. Since information, technical assistance, rural credit and financial incentives are necessary, but individually they are insufficient to stimulate behavioral changes in rural producers. Therefore, a project that includes all four of these points in a cohesive way may be more successful than actions that promote just one or two of these approaches.

Method

The Sustainable Rural Project, started in 2013, aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, reduce poverty and promote rural development, promotes four low-carbon agricultural technologies that involve the restoration or management of forests. The project is aimed at small and medium-sized farmers in 70 municipalities in the following Brazilian states: Pará, Mato Grosso, Rondônia, Bahia, Minas Gerais, Paraná and Rio Grande do Sul. This project is financed by the International Climate Fund [4] and the UK Department for Environment and Rural Affairs [5] , being implemented by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) [6] .

Through a public call, a number of farms were identified in the project's seven states, calling them Demonstration Units (DUs) [7] , where such farms had already implemented one of the project's four low-carbon technologies, independently of the project. “Field days” were organized at DUs, where interested farmers were invited to observe and learn about the process and benefits of implementing these technologies. Thus, disseminating information about the opportunities associated with the Low Carbon Agriculture Plan and Program (ABC). Therefore, the objective of the project is to establish 350 DUs in the seven Brazilian states that will host 2,600 “field days”. Project individuals can access training opportunities during “field days” through online courses and information posted on the website.

Farmers may be reluctant to take the risk of adopting new, unfamiliar practices, so the project offers results-based payments to teams of rural extension agents whose proposals are approved and successfully implemented. Because payment depends on success, it will generate motivation between both parties to continue the collaboration until completion.

Main Results

The central component of the Sustainable Rural project is to encourage teams of farmers and extension workers to jointly develop and present proposals that, if funded, would enable the implementation of one or more low-carbon agricultural technologies on the farmer's property. In which proposals must be eligible for a loan from the ABC Program, aiming to leverage their main financing. Farms that successfully implement a proposal are called Multiplication Units (MUs), where the project aims to establish ten times more MUs than DUs.

All four low-carbon agricultural technologies promoted by the project involve the restoration or management of forests. In this way, the project can contribute to forest restoration and management efforts among small and medium-sized farmers on Brazilian private lands. Thus, restoration and management can generate both private and public benefits. Whereas forest restoration can provide access to natural resources (such as food, firewood and timber), the restoration or maintenance of ecosystem services and the achievement of more diversified livelihoods. Furthermore, such restoration helps farmers comply with the Brazilian Forest Code.

And, finally, forest restoration at scale will help Brazil achieve its objectives of mitigating and adapting to climate change, which adopted a target of 20 million hectares of reforestation. Likewise, it is important to highlight that forest restoration and the planting of commercial forests on degraded lands also offer significant potential for carbon sequestration.

Embrapa, a Brazilian agricultural research company, is leading research into the project's results. Therefore, the authors highlight that there remains some uncertainty about the scale of impacts that the project will achieve.

Public Policy Lessons

The large-scale restoration of forests on private lands presents a challenge given the large number of farmers needed to put it into practice, therefore, the success of the project is conditional on convincing farmers about changes in the practices carried out on the farms. However, if the combination of information, technical assistance, credit and results-based payment is sufficient to motivate a significant number of farmers to adopt low-carbon farming, the project will generate important lessons about combining governance interventions for development. environmental and socioeconomic.

References

MAPA (2016). ABC Program released R$2 billion in credit in the 2015/2016 harvest year. Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply. Available at: http://www.agricultura.gov.br/comunicacao/noticias/2016/08/programa-abc-liberou-rs-2-bi-em-credito-no-ano-safra-20152016

[1] United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

[2] Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

[3] Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions.

[4] International Climate Fund.

[5] UK's Department of Environment and Rural Affairs (Defra).

[6] Inter-American Development Bank.

[7] Demonstration Units.