Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
tp://www.abiove.com.br/english/cotacoes_us.html
; Butler, Rhett A (2008),
U.S. Biofuels Policy Drives Deforestation in
Indonesia
,
the Amazon
,
mongabay.com
January 17, 2008.
25
Butler, Rhett A (2007c),
U.S. Corn Subsidies Drive Amazon Destruction
,
Mongabay.com
,
13 December 2007,
ht-
26
Sparovek
et al
(2009), 'Environmental, Land-Use and Economic Implications of Brazilian Sugar-Cane Expansion',
1996-2006.
Mitig Adapt Strateg Glob Change
, 14: 285-98.
27
According to the Brazilian government only two per cent of rainforest beef is exported: Eduardo Roxo (Brazilian
Ambassador to UK), 'Brazil's Actions are Combatting Amazon Deforestation', letter,
The Guardian
, 5 June 2009; UK
figures: DEFRA and Food Standards Agency,
GM Crops and Foods: Follow-up to the Food Matters Report
by Defra and
the FSA, August 2009.
28
According to Greenpeace there are 56 million cows in the Brazilian Amazon, which is 36.6 per cent of the entire
Brazilian herd (2006 data). Brazil produced 7.9 million tonnes of beef in 2007 so on a pro rata basis that is 2.9 million
tonnes, or 4.7 per cent of world beef production, or about one per cent of world meat production. I cannot find any figures
for rainforest beef from other Latin American countries, but judging by FAO figures for total production in countries with
rainforest, it is unlikely to be more than a third as much as in Brazil. Greenpeace (2009),
Slaughtering the Amazon
, 2009;
FAO SOFA (2009),
op cit.
29
The FAO do not make a clear distinction between emissions from manure and emissions from grazing; in regard to
the indirect emissions they remark that 'this methodology is beset with high uncertainties, and may lead to an overestim-
ation because manure during grazing is considered'.
The FAO 's figures are based on IPCC 1997 methodology. The updated 2006 methodology lowers a number of de-
fault emission factors quite significantly including EF1 (relating to the amount of N
2
O per kilo of N fertilizer or manure
applied to the land) from 1.25 to 1.00; and EF5, for nitrogen leaching in run-off water from 0.025 to 0.0075, a reduction
of 70 per cent. On the other hand the FAO use a Global Warming Potential for methane of 21, which has been superseded,
for research purposes, by a GWP of 23, and in 2007 of 25. An updated version of the FAO's table would therefore display
marginally increased emissions from methane and considerably lower emissions from N
2
O. It would also need to account
for an increase in total numbers of livestock, and in fossil fuel emissions.
30
FAO (2006),
op cit. 5
, p 53.
31
Ibid, p 34.
32
Ibid, p 104. The figures actually relate to ammonia emissions from manure.
33
IPCC (2007),
Climate Change 2007, Synthesis Report
,
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/syr/
ar4_syr_spm.pdf
;
EPA, Methane to Markets, 2008
http://www.epa.gov/methanetomarkets/docs/methanemarkets-
factsheet.pdf
;
Stern, N (2007)
The Economics of Climate Change
, Cambridge, p 223.
34
See, for example, a range of estimates given in Environmental Change Institute (2006),
Methane UK
, Chapter 2;
35
Ibid.
, citing Khalil, M (2000),
Atmospheric Methane: Its Role In The Global Environment
. The EPA in 2009
raised their figure from 32 per cent to 34 per cent. EPA (2009),
The Methane to Markets Partnership
, US Environmental
Protection
Agency.
