Moving Beyond the "Heroes vs. Villains" Narrative in Natural Resources
A new study found that in the Brazilian Amazon, agribusiness leaders had a positive impact on their communities.
“Are agribusiness leaders ‘heroes’ or ‘villains’ to the Amazon rainforest?”
So begins a recent article in the scholarly journal Academy of Management Discoveries. Given the role of agricultural expansion in the depletion of Amazon rainforests, one might expect that communities led by mayors with backgrounds in agribusiness (i.e., farming or cattle breeding) would have higher deforestation rates than those led by mayors with other backgrounds.
As it turns out, however, mayors with agribusiness backgrounds were the “good guys” of the story. The study found that Brazilian Amazon communities led by mayors with agribusiness backgrounds had adjacent deforestation rates that were no different from communities led by mayors with non-agribusiness backgrounds. Further, these agriculturalist-led communities had significantly higher rates of new business formation.
The researchers conclude that we must “move beyond simplistic notions of ‘heroes’ and ‘villains’ in the quest to reconcile environmental and economic objectives.”
I believe most forestry industry professionals would agree with this assessment.
Municipal Investment Led to More Business Formations
What did the agribusiness-backgrounded mayors do to enable increased business formations, compared to their peers with non-agribusiness backgrounds? According to the study, the mayors spent measurably more money on agriculture supports, such as community markets and agricultural equipment, and on infrastructure and urbanism, such as roads and bridges, public lighting, and sewage treatment.1 The researchers theorize that these expenditures helped dynamize local economies and hence enable business creation.
Although most types of businesses (including manufacturing, agribusiness, and services) saw increases, the service sector increased the most. The authors suggested that the dynamic business environment may have stimulated demand for supporting activities.
Why Didn’t These Communities Have More Deforestation?
There is less known about why the communities led by agribusiness-backgrounded mayors had no more deforestation than communities led by mayors having other backgrounds. (Indeed, much of the current academic literature about the topic suggests that the agribusiness mayors would be more likely to push for greater agribusiness expansion.)
The researchers speculate that Brazil’s strengthening anti-deforestation regulations during the study period (2004-2016) may have been the reason why local leaders who may otherwise have been motivated to expand agricultural production into forested land did not actually do so. From 2004 onward, the Real-Time Deforestation Detection System (DETER) has used satellite imagery to monitor rainforest areas and report changes in (near) real time. Further, in 2012, a new Forest Code (Law No. 12,651) outlined new requirements for private property owners.
Lingering Questions for Natural Resource Professionals
Digging deeper, the forestry consultant in me wonders, “Why were the mayors with agribusiness backgrounds more likely to make business-favourable investments than mayors that had other backgrounds?”
While the paper’s authors were willing to speculate on the mayors’ motivations for not harming the environment, they say relatively little about the possible motivations for the mayors’ financial decisions. Though it makes sense that leaders who are themselves farmers might be more likely to fund agricultural handouts than their non-agricultural peers, why would they be more likely to fund municipal infrastructure?
My theory would be that communities that have agribusiness as their main economic driver benefit from having leaders who understand the needs of this sector. Such knowledge includes an awareness of not only farming but also how the agribusiness supply chain drives indirect employment.
Could there be parallel lessons for communities dependent on other natural resources, such as forestry?2 Can natural resource professionals’ knowledge be leveraged to help grow their communities’ economies, without increasing harm to the environment? I’d like to believe it can.
What do you think?
Note that this trend towards increased municipal spending was only significant in communities with nearby soybean farms, rather than ones primarily surrounded by ranches. The authors suggest this may be because soy farming is a more “dynamic” industry than ranching: farms are bought and sold more frequently (rather than remaining in the family for generations) and hire more employees.
The paper carefully states that the study results were specific to one place (the Brazilian Amazon) and one point in time (2004-2015). We can draw parallels between different resource-dependent communities, but we cannot conclusively state that what is true in one place and time must also be true in another.