Intensificação Sustentável :Limites e contradições da Pecuária bovina baseada em pastagens no Cerrado

Abstract

Sustainable intensification has been widely promoted as a key strategy to reconcile agricultural productivity with environmental conservation in Brazil. However, doubts persist about what is actually adopted as sustainable intensification in practice, especially in the context of pasture-based cattle ranching in Brazil, with a focus on the Cerrado, a strategic biome that is intensely pressured by agricultural activities. This thesis critically investigates the limits and contradictions of this model, focusing on pasture degradation and the effectiveness of intensification strategies in promoting sustainability. The research is structured into three complementary chapters, presented in the format of scientific papers. The first paper presents a systematic review of 58 publications on sustainable intensification in cultivated pastures in Brazil, identifying and categorizing the main indicators (environmental, productive, economic, and social) and their metrics. It reveals a disproportionate emphasis on productive and environmental aspects at local and macro-regional scales, while social indicators remain scarce and diluted in broader scale analyses. In the second paper, an empirical study is conducted in the state of Goiás, comparing beef and dairy cattle systems subjected to different levels of intensification. The findings demonstrate that intensive practices do not always improve pasture quality and may even exacerbate degradation processes in dairy systems. In the third paper, a spatial and multivariate approach is used to classify municipalities in Goiás based on livestock intensification patterns and relate them to pasture quality dynamics and the frequency of fires. It is found that areas classified as highly intensified do not show consistent environmental recovery or reduced use of fire. Based on the integration of these three Papers, conceptual, empirical, and territorial,the thesis concludes that the current intensification model, as adopted in public policies and productive practices, presents limitations in terms of effective sustainability. The thesis contributes to the debate on possible pathways to sustainability in Brazilian cattle ranching, particularly in the recovery of degraded pastures, proposing a critical reflection on the adopted criteria, the real impacts of ongoing strategies, and the urgency of more integrated, inclusive, and territory-adapted policies.