1 Title: Soy Expansion in Brazil’s Cerrado 2 Authors: Lisa L. Rausch1*, Holly K. Gibbs2, Ian Schelly3, Amintas Brandão Jr. 4, Douglas C. Morton5, 3 Arnaldo Carneiro Filho6, Bernardo Strassburg7, Nathalie Walker8, Praveen Noojipady9, Paulo Barreto9, 4 Daniel Meyer10 5 Affiliations: 6 1. Corresponding author: Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment (SAGE), 7 Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1710 8 University Ave, Madison, WI 53711, USA, [email protected], telephone: +1.608.890.0037, 9 fax: +1.608.265.4113 10 2. Department of Geography, Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment (SAGE), 11 Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA, 12 [email protected] 13 3. Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment (SAGE), Nelson Institute for 14 Environmental Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA, [email protected] 15 4. Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment (SAGE), Nelson Institute for 16 Environmental Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA, [email protected] 17 5. NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, USA, [email protected] 18 6. Global Canopy, Oxford, United Kingdom, [email protected] 19 7. Department of Geography and the Environment Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de 20 Janeiro (PUC-Rio) and International Institute for Sustainability, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 21 [email protected] 22 8. National Wildlife Federation, Washington, DC, USA, [email protected] 23 9. NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, USA, [email protected] 24 10. Global Canopy, Oxford, United Kingdom, [email protected] 25 26 27 Running title: Soy Expansion in Brazil’s Cerrado 28 29 Keywords: Brazil, commodity agriculture, deforestation, land use change, policy analysis, property- 30 level analysis, soy, supply-chain policies 31 32 Type of article: Letter 33 34 Number of words in abstract: 140 35 36 Number of words in manuscript (main text): 3,000 37 38 Number of references (in main text): 40 39 40 Number of Tables and figures (main text): 6 41 1 42 Abstract: 43 The Cerrado Biome is Brazil’s breadbasket and a major provider of ecosystem services, though these 44 dual roles are increasingly at odds. We conducted a comprehensive assessment of Cerrado conversion 45 for the rapidly expanding, high value crop of soybeans using 580,000 property boundaries and time 46 series of satellite data. Soy was a major driver of Cerrado conversion during 2003-2014 (22%) and only 47 15% of all Cerrado conversion exceeded Forest Code restrictions for clearing on private properties. 48 However, soy farms were five times more likely to be non-compliant than other farm types. As a leading 49 cause of both Cerrado conversion and non-compliance, the soy sector has environmental and economic 50 incentives to shift production to existing cleared lands. Combined, property boundaries and suitability 51 maps highlight sustainable solutions that mitigate the environmental impacts of further soy expansion 52 across both old and new cropland frontiers. 53 Introduction 54 The Brazilian Cerrado is a vast neotropical savanna and Brazil’s most productive agricultural 55 region (Lambin et al 2013; Rada et al 2013; Cardoso da Silva & Bates 2002), with 61% of the country’s 56 soy area and half the cattle herd (Noojipady et al 2017; Lapola et al 2014). By 2015, 42% of natural 57 Cerrado vegetation (86 Mha) had been cleared for agricultural use. One-fifth (17 Mha) of this cleared 58 land was planted with soy and another 44% (38 Mha) was used as pasture. Much of this conversion 59 occurred decades ago (Strassburg et al 2017, Sano et al 2010; Klink & Machado 2005), leading to the 60 Cerrado’s current mosaic formations including secondary vegetation from abandonment or rotational 61 management (Jepson, 2005). 62 Extensive clearing is possible because the Cerrado is afforded relatively little legal protection, 63 especially compared with the Amazon biome. Brazil’s Forest Code (“FC”) permits agricultural use on 65- 64 80% of a property with Cerrado vegetation, compared to only 20% of properties with Amazon forest 2 65 vegetation. Protected areas cover 13% of the Cerrado, compared to 46% of the Amazon (Strassburg et 66 al 2017; Carranza et al 2014). Additionally, private-sector zero-deforestation commitments for soy and 67 cattle have been in place in the Amazon since 2006 and 2009, respectively, but do not currently include 68 the Cerrado (Gibbs et al 2015; Gibbs et al 2014; Macedo et al 2012). 69 Continued Cerrado conversion will have major impacts on ecosystem services, which may 70 accelerate the projected transition to hotter temperatures and lower rainfall, thereby threatening 71 agricultural productivity in both the immediate and the longer terms (Coe et al 2017; Spera et al 2016; 72 Arante et al 2016). Ongoing clearing also threatens the region’s endemic flora and fauna (Strassburg et 73 al 2017; Vieira et al 2017). Loss of remaining carbon stocks in the Cerrado vegetation could significantly 74 reduce Brazil’s ability to meet Nationally Determined Commitments for greenhouse gas emissions (Coe 75 et al 2017; Aguiar et al 2016). Ongoing conversion also threatens water supplies to more than 29 million 76 Cerrado residents (Strassburg et al 2017). In recognition of the need for a balanced development 77 strategy, a growing number of large companies with substantial economic interests in the Cerrado have 78 made public commitments to eliminate deforestation from their supply chains (United Nations 2014; 79 Consumer Goods Forum 2010), which raises the stakes for ongoing clearing. 80 Here, we provide a detailed study of the role of soy expansion in recent land use trends and a 81 farm-level assessment of the potential conservation and sector impacts of efforts to limit conversion in 82 the Cerrado. We characterized land use at the farm level, including FC compliance on properties 83 observed to produce more than 25ha of soy (“soy farms”) and those farms that produced cattle or other 84 types of crops (“non-soy farms”), to demonstrate the role that soy plays in Cerrado clearing and to 85 assess pathways for future soy expansion. We also considered potential impacts of zero-conversion 86 policies in the Cerrado, based on updated maps of soy suitability, evidence from field visits, and a survey 87 of over 500 soy buyers. 3 88 Our study builds on previous work that considered expansion of all types of croplands, and that 89 estimated legal reserve surpluses and deficits for rural properties overall (Noojipady et al 2017; Freitas 90 et al 2017; Gibbs et al 2014; Soares Filho et al 2014; Sparovek et al 2012). We go further and provide 91 analyses of soy properties, along with regional details, that can support evidence-based decision-making 92 by stakeholders in Brazil’s soy sector, for whom details about soy properties compared to other 93 properties are fundamental. Previous studies have lacked the combination of property boundaries, soy 94 expansion maps, and soy suitability maps used here to isolate the impacts of soy from other land uses 95 and to assess how current and potential soy properties would be affected by new policies. 96 METHODS 97 Assessing causes of annual clearing 98 To assess clearing for soy in the Cerrado, we created a map of annual soy expansion between 99 2001 and 2014, based on maps of annual soy extent from Agrosatélite and NASA. To determine how 100 much clearing was caused by soy expansion each year in the Cerrado, we intersected the annual LAPIG 101 conversion maps with our dataset of annual soy expansion, and then tracked land use for the three 102 years following deforestation (using an approach similar to Gibbs et al 2015; see Supplement sections 2 103 and 3.2). 104 Property-level assessments 105 We created a map of private properties by combining 573,638 boundaries from Brazil’s Rural 106 Environmental Registry (Portuguese acronym: CAR), combined with an additional 140, 311 private 107 property boundaries from the National Institute of Colonization and Agrarian Reform (Incra) (see 108 supplement section 5). Our final property dataset covers 62% of the areas under or eligible for private 109 ownership and 77% of the 2014 soy area. 4 110 We assessed the legality of annual clearing and the potential for continued legal clearing using 111 our map of private properties. The required area of the Legal Reserve set-asides on each property was 112 determined using a map by (Soares Filho et al 2014) that spatially allocates legal reserve requirements 113 according to the FC (see supplement section 5.1). We used LAPIG to estimate the annual cleared area on 114 each property and determined whether this clearing went beyond these thresholds, at which point it 115 was considered illegal. We conducted a robustness analysis using 12th order watersheds as proxies for 116 private properties following (Soares Filho et al 2014). 117 Properties with the potential for legal clearing were identified by overlaying a natural vegetation 118 map created by combining non-cleared areas in Lapig with native vegetation areas identified by Inpe’s 119 TerraClass 2013 map (see Supplement section 5.2). Properties where natural vegetation exceeded 120 required amounts were considered to have the potential for additional legal clearing. 121 Land available for soy expansion 122 We estimated the area and soy suitability of different types of land in the Cerrado: 1) areas 123 under native vegetation, according to the map described above; 2) areas of native vegetation that can 124 be legally cleared under the FC; and 3) areas that have already been cleared (those areas outside of 125 native vegetation areas and excluding 2014 soy production areas, including areas planted to corn and 126 cotton).