This project will help support the development of a jurisdictional approach in the Brazilian Cerrado through inclusive multi-stakeholder engagement that seeks to reduce deforestation, improve governance, and expand climate smart resilient agricultural production in the state of Tocantins.

The Brazilian Cerrado exhibits key challenges associated with rapid agricultural development. Nearly 50% of native Cerrado vegetation has already been converted to agriculture. Tocantins state contains the largest remaining areas of Cerrado vegetation, 14.4 million ha, but over the past decade had the highest rate of land conversion. The remaining natural Cerrado in Tocantins is highly vulnerable: 63% is on private land and 3 million ha can be legally cleared.  Conflicting views over remaining natural lands have contributed to tense social and political discourse, as agriculturalists view Tocantins as a land of opportunity, while conservationists view Tocantins as a last frontier to be saved from conversion.

While the threats from agriculture are clear, recent analysis shows that the right agriculture in the right places is essential to achieving the Paris Climate agreement.  Climate smart farming and grazing can deliver 5.2 gigatons CO2e of annual mitigation by 2030.  Brazil's agricultural research agency EMBRAPA has developed climate-smart agricultural practices that can contribute directly to these goals.  Implementation of these Low Carbon Agriculture practices (ABC by their acronym in Portuguese) has reduced GHG emissions, increased yields, and boosted farm resiliency.  Widespread adoption of these practices coupled with agricultural expansion into Tocantins's 4 million ha of degraded land and conservation of remaining natural vegetation could demonstrate that climate smart agriculture and conservation together can deliver essential natural climate solutions for people and nature.

Unfortunately, this vision of sustainable, climate-smart agricultural development is not being realized due to inter-related factors including:

Lack of appropriate dialogue forums necessary to explore + align upon alternative visions for agriculture, conservation and sustainable rural development in Tocantins.  Brazil's NBSAP and the ABC+ 2020-2030 strategy, which feeds into Brazil's NDC, establish national targets for conservation and climate-smart agriculture. However, poor communication and coordination between sectors and levels of government means that local government does not see the potential synergies between policy targets nor have the resources to pursue joint implementation. Local stakeholders do not have forums to share the needs and aspirations of their communities and explore collaboration with other sectors. Together, these factors fuel further isolation, frustration, reduce cross-sectoral collaboration and stifle progress towards national targets. 

Farmers do not have incentives to change from business-as-usual land-development and farming practices.  Current farming practices, even if sub-optimal, are typically profitable for farmers and there are no incentives to take risks in implementing new farming practices that could increase yield and profitability and increase soil carbon sequestration and improve crop resilience. Farmers with natural vegetation on-farm beyond the requirements of legal compliance have no incentive to conserve.

Gaps in capacity needed to implement known solutions and drive scale of adoption.  EMBRAPA's ABC practices can be good for farmers' bottom line, the climate and the environment. However, there is no extension network to disseminate these technologies widely nor tell the success stories of farmers that have adopted them. Furthermore, credit lines that might create incentives for farmers to adopt ABC practices are not accessed by local banks in Tocantins, making them difficult and cumbersome to access.

The net result is a "business as usual" development scenario, with agriculture driving continued conversion of Cerrado vegetation, GHG emissions, biodiversity loss and land conflict. Lack of effective collaboration between national, state and local governments leaves the agricultural sector unprepared for EU market regulations and creates risk for downstream buyers.

This initiative will address these challenges by tackling the following three objectives:

1. Improve governance through cross-sector collaboration: Local stakeholders do not have forums to share the needs and aspirations of their communities and explore collaboration with other sectors. Additionally, municipal governments do not have the opportunity to engage and influence state regulations. Establishment of multi-stakeholder platforms will help to bring different stakeholders together, create opportunities for alignment and greater clarity of roles and responsibilities in defining and implementing regulations. Therefore, one of our primary objectives is to improve governance by establishing these representative and well-functioning platforms. Establishing these platforms to work on converging ideas would bridge the gap between policy makers and local producers and open a dialogue, including market representatives, to build a shared vision connecting ambitions and expectations.

2. Disseminate low carbon agriculture and livestock practices as a “stepping stone” towards more regenerative agriculture and remove barriers to financial incentives to encourage uptake at scale: Brazil´s institutional framework has important provisions defining how each sector would contribute to climate change mitigation and adaptation. For the farming sector, the Ministry of Agriculture has developed the Low Carbon Agricultural Plan (ABC Plan) which defines how specific practices could help to reduce agriculture and livestock emissions. The ABC Program includes the establishment of credit lines to enable the adoption of ABC practices.  Adoption of these technologies and credit access has been low. Dissemination of information through technical assistance and extension services is still limited and financial institutions normally lack the information needed to help producers who want to transition to climate smart agriculture. A key program objective is to address these gaps by building capacity to disseminate ABC practices and access existing ABC credit lines and position farmers to begin a transition to more regenerative agricultural practices. When coupled with strong governance systems, improved land management can lead to increased production and land sparing. With coordinated efforts and available land for conservation and restoration, landscape connectivity can be built, benefiting producers and local communities. 

3. Reduce legal deforestation of native vegetation within private properties: Given the high potential for legal deforestation in the Brazilian Cerrado, our third primary objective is to create incentives for conserving native vegetation. By building multistakeholder platforms, we will strengthen community networks and reinforce the importance of natural capital for long-term productivity. We will work with local and state level government representatives, farmers, communities and private sector actors to build landscape plans that accommodate production expansion without opening new areas. We will partner with other initiatives and financiers to deploy additional incentives for on-farm conservation.  We will document the results and on-farm benefits achieved by leading producers adopting these practices and disseminate these through a targeted communications strategy and by profiling these examples in the multistakeholder platforms. Dissemination of these success stories through the platforms and farmer-to-farmer networks will raise awareness of alternatives to continued habitat conversion and demonstrate the value to farmers and farming landscapes from use of ABC practices, recovery of degraded pasturelands, soil and water conservation techniques, assisted natural regeneration and ecological restoration.