Efeitos das mudanças climáticas globais na agricultura brasileira: análise da irrigação como estratégia adaptativa

• Autor(a) principal: Cunha, Dênis Antônio da
• Data de Publicação: 2011
• Tipo de documento: Tese
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: LOCUS Repositório Institucional da UFV
• Texto Completo: http://locus.ufv.br/handle/123456789/141
• topic: Mudanças climáticas; Agricultura; Adaptação; Irrigação; Climate change; Agriculture; Adaptation; Irrigation; CNPQ::CIENCIAS SOCIAIS APLICADAS

The main objective of this paper was to analyze the effects of global climate change on agriculture in Brazil. But, unlike other studies performed for Brazil, it was considered that producers will try to adapt to climate change. Irrigation was considered as an adaptive strategy, since Brazil presents favorable conditions for sustainable development of this activity. The Treatment Effect model was used in this research. Results confirmed prior expectation that irrigation is influenced by climate variations and, thus, should be modeled as an adaptive measure. Given current conditions, irrigation has been adopted more as a response to reduced rainfall occurrences than to temperature variations. In general, the analysis of factors associated with its adoption in Brazil showed that to be an irrigator, the farmer must have enough income to afford the costs of investment, technical knowledge (which involves understanding the potential and limitations of the technique, and its operation and functioning) and administrative capacity. Furthermore, his/her farm must have good water availability as well as good soil conditions. It is possible to conclude that irrigators income tends to be more stable, demonstrating the effectiveness of irrigation as an adaptive measure. Given the predictions of climate change, irrigation has the potential to contribute to improve Brazil agricultural performance, making producers less vulnerable to climate. It is confirmed, thus, the need to include adaptation measures in the estimation, providing a good assessment of what really happens. Ignoring the adjustment causes an overestimation of damages, sometimes in a dramatic way. In general, results of this study suggest that the impacts of climate change on agriculture in Brazil will not be so pessimistic. At the same time, they reinforce the need for public policies that seek strategies to combat the effects of global warming in agriculture. Moreover, given the evidence of irrigation importance as an adaptive measure, the creation of specific credit policies for irrigation should be encouraged, especially for less capitalized producers. It would be a way to avoid the increase of regional inequalities in Brazil.