Assessing sustainability of traditional extensive beef cattle rearing in the Pantanal of South Mato Grosso through eMergy methodology

Abstract

The study was conducted at Fazenda São José, Aquidauana - Mato Grosso do Sul, , which can be considered as representative of traditional farming in the Pantanal region, where we assessed the sustainability of cattle production. To assess the environmental performance of livestock, the emergy methodology was used. In emergy analysis, are accounted for the proceeds from economy and also those resources from nature. For the interpretation of information gathered, we calculated indices such as transformability, renewability among other suggested by the emergy methodology. Results showed that the production of cattle in San Jose Farm is highly sustainable because it uses 89.11% of renewable resources of nature, and emergy added to produce meat is far exceeding the emergy received from its sale. This leads to propose alternatives to enhance this activity and this product, as the creation of sustainability labels, as well as payments for environmental services provided, given the great importance of cattle rearing in the preservation of the Pantanal biome