The project aims to leverage existing activities promoting Low-Carbon Agriculture and Livestock Production in Brazil, with a focus in the regions of the Serrado and Atlantic Forest biomes. The rational of the project derives from the fact that Brazil is the world largest producer of several commodities, including animal and vegetal proteins, with a potential for the recuperation of degraded “green areas” (i.e., “Pastos”) of about 48 million hectares. In addition, the production areas are far away from consumer and exporting regions, leading to a huge impact of food logistics and transportation on climate change.

The project relies on recent assessments on the linkages between ecosystems and human well-being and, in particular, on “ecosystem services”, following the framework provided by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment[1], as well as the UN´s Global Livestock Environmental Assessment Model (GLEAM) [2]. In addition, it considers the “Livestock Environmental Assessment and Performance – LEAP” partnership[3], as a multi-stakeholder initiative that seeks to improve the environmental sustainability of the livestock sector through harmonized methods, metrics, and data. LEAP leads a coordinated global initiative to accelerate the sustainable development of livestock supply chain and to support coherent climate actions, while contributing to the achievement of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Paris Agreement.

The Sustainable Territories for Low Carbon Agriculture and Livestock Production Collaboratory will leverage activities developed by Conexión Bioceanica, EMBRAPA and CEiiA/Elio Tecnology over the last few years, including the use of digital sensors installed in unmanned autonomous space platforms specially built for high resolution ortho-photogrammetry. In particular, the experience of Embrapa´s “ILPF - Innovation, with Integration of Agriculture, Livestock and Forest” (i.e., “ILPF - Inovação, com Integração de Lavoura, Pecuária e Floresta”) will be leveraged under the following context:

• The valorisation of agricultural resources is one of the biggest challenges for production in Brasil and Latin America;
• Integrate sustainable territories in food logistics to support low-carbon agriculture and livestock production, developing optimization routes, low-carbon energy transportation, bioceanic integration for logistics optimization;
• The recovery technology that allows the production of high added-value products will have a huge impact on production and additional income for producers, with relatively low levels of investment. It may also allow for the production of biochar (i.e., “Biocarvão”) which will reduce the ecological footprint of crops, if properly used together with regenerative agriculture techniques.

Expected outcomes, include:

• Poverty alleviation and local job creation and employment;
• Increase of carbon stocks in the recovered areas, promoting new levels of carbon sequestration, with maintenance of carbon stocks in existing forests areas in food production farms (APP´s Permanente Preservation areas, and RL – Legal Forest reservation);
• Increase in soil carbon stocks through the incorporation of biochar;
• Reduction of waste odors with reduced acute lower respiratory infections, together with improved quality of life for farmers;
• Establishing “ecosystem corridors” for wildlife;
• Promote “sustainable territories” of food production integrating low-carbon agriculture with log-carbon food logistics along the food value chain (i.e., between food production areas and consumers, including the exporting infrastructure).