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Expanding agriculture into the Amazon rainforest could bring
decreasing yields as climate feedbacks from deforestation reduce rainfall,
according to scientists from the US and Brazil. Ultimately, clearing land to
grow crops or pasture could become self-defeating.
“Agricultural expansion in Amazonia, beyond some limits, may
be a no-win scenario,” Leydimere Oliveira of Brazil’s Federal University of
Viçosa and Federal University of Pampa told environmentalresearchweb. “By
expanding agriculture by an excessive amount, we lose important Amazon
ecosystem services, such as carbon storage in the live rainforest and climate
regulation. In the end, there are losses everywhere you look.”