That just isn’t true. Most arable land is used to grow animal feed. And maybe the Brazilian rainforests can’t be used for much which has economical value, only things like producing oxygen and being one of the richest and biodiverse ecosystems on earth, but I still think it would be better to try to preserve them instead of converting them to land for grazing.
Rainforest land is not arable. Farmers who try to grow crops (typically soybean) in the Amazon get 2-3 years of crops before the land becomes infertile, then it has to fallow again. Their only option is to add massive amounts of chemical fertilizers which washes out into the Amazon basin. Aside from leaving the forests undisturbed (which is my preference), raising cattle is better for that ecosystem than agricultural farming would be.
I don't think anyone disagrees with you. My point (again) is that this land can't be sustainably farmed for vegetable/cereal crops, so cattle is the only industry that the land could be used for. I would prefer there were some sustainable ranching practices, but I don't know enough about Brazilian agriculture to comment on how that land is managed after it's cleared.
I guess the million dollar question is - who has the moral authority to tell Brazilians that they don't have the right to utilize their land and natural resources like China, USA, India, and every other industrial nation?
How land is utilized has a huge impact. You'd think Brazil's rainforests would be on incredibly fertile land, but the soil actually stinks for agriculture. Brazilian farmers use Swidden (a.k.a. Slash-and-Burn) agriculture. They clear the land and generally only get a few useful growing seasons before the soil is infertile. Then they move on.
Land has more uses than agriculture of course. Forestry is huge. The amazon, were it sustainably logged instead of hastily burned, could supply a tremendous amount of lumber. Canada and Russia do have a lot of perma-frost in the far North, but an even larger portion of their uninhabited land is boreal forest. This land is far from useless even if much of it is not suitable for agriculture.
There down in Brazil, rainforest are being cut down at alarming rate in service to animal agriculture. It will be easier to preserve the Brazilian rainforests if there was some other way to grow meat that didn't involve huge grazing pastures for animals.
Pastures in areas that are naturally grassy is fine. Pastures that have been created by deforesting the Amazon are not at all ok (Brazil is the worlds largest exporter of beef - not all of that is Amazonian land, but a lot of it is).
Soy is often grown in deforested rainforest areas too. But as a sibling comment says, only 6% of soy goes towards direct human consumption. The rest is for animal feed.
“The grass/food that cattle eat, what would happen to it if let to decompose ?”
It would decompose (once) and then natural habitat would return because we need less of that land, capturing carbon more permanently because it’s released more slowly. In Brazil, exactly the opposite is happening: deforestation to feed cattle. Are you arguing for that deforestation?
Fixing Brazil's economy has little to do with using more land. US Forest Service Manages 8% of US land for example.
More simply modern economy gains little from farm land as there exists such an over supply of food that farming tends to be break even or be a net economic loss.
That said, people will always be interested in extracting value from pubic lands at the public expense.
Actually, much of the land in Brazil that's being used for biofuels was previously deforested for logging and cattle. Of the remainder, yes, some of it is biofuels, but the vast majority is simply logging, with agriculture (both crops and livestock) a distant second.
The lifecycle is more complex than this. Slash and burn agriculture is used to squeeze a few cash soybean crops out, this requires specific GMO soy, and these are 90% sold to China to fatten pigs.
When the land is only suitable for grass, it's grazed for awhile, after which it's basically desert.
South America also has some of the richest cattle land in the world in the Pampas, which has sustained beef production for hundreds of years on land which is otherwise unsuitable to food production.
Pressure on one company could stop the conversion of rainforest into soybeans. This doesn't solve the problem in a single stroke, nothing can, but it would help, and it doesn't require influence over the government of Brazil.
This is so short-sighted and ignorant, it's hard to even read about. Brazilians should cherish their rainforest, legacy of millions of years of evolution, with wondrous biodiversity and an amazing carbon sink the planet desperately needs.
Instead, they're chopping and burning this vital carbon store to make room for beef production. This is so short sighted it's painful. We know beef has to be massively ramped down, it releases a ton of methane. Hopefully meat alternatives will render all these cattle farms obsolete.
Then what? Once we figure out artificial meat, all of these ranchers lose economically, and the million year old ecosystem is already destroyed. Sickening.
You seem to have missed the important part of my comment.
If you tell an Iowa corn farmer than he can't grow corn anymore, he doesn't just give up and let his land turn in to prairie. He will grow soy, or raise pigs, or whatever else monetizes the land.
Brazilians will keep cutting down forests because they depend on the land for income. They ultimately don't care what the deforestation is for, only that it feeds their family.
This sounds amazing, but at the same time, I am concerned about the rain forest. Obviously more economically useful crops would accelerate repurposing the rain forest. Maybe the world would need to subsidize Brazil more to keep the rain forest? And could Brazil be expecting more subsidy with this development?
Unfortunately, the Amazon won't be saved unless the rest of the world puts their hand in their pockets. It is a resource for those countries to elevate themselves out of poverty and develop their countries.
Europe did the same. The US did the same. To tell these poor countries they should not cut down the forest because it is a resource for the world is a bit rich.
Yes there is a problem with the mega farms / ranches that seem to be a problem in some areas of Brazil, but also the small holdings where peasant (I don't like to use this word, but it does differentiate from the typical wesstern usage of the word farmer, but I don't intend to use it in a derogatory way) farmers eek out an existence by chopping down a few hectares for pasture land for a couple dozen head of cattle which they can sell.
Ecuador tried a novel approach a couple of years ago and went to the UN asking for $4 billion to not extract oil from a particular life rich area of the forest (the oil was said to be worth $8billion). They got pledges of $32 million (pledges which do not always translate to payment).
So now oil roads are being built, where the road goes, small holidings sprint up all along and more of the forest gets cut down / polluted.
The majority of the worlds meat is raised in areas where forests do not naturally develop.
If all natural meat consumption stopped tomorrow, Brazilians would cut down forests to grow whatever is needed for fake meat. The problem is land is one of the few economically exploitable natural resources the country has to sustain itself.
We need an economic framework that makes it more profitable to keep the forest intact than to burn it down and plant soybeans.
It's hypocritical to point the finger at Brazil for exploiting their natural resources when developed countries got rich by doing the same. If we want to prioritize biodiversity and oxygen generation then we should pay the Amazonian countries for it.
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