Land and water footprints associated with rice and maize losses in Brazil

• Abbade, Eduardo Botti ^[1]
  1. [1] Universidade Federal de Santa Maria

     Universidade Federal de Santa Maria

     Brasil

     
• Localización: Land use policy: The International Journal Covering All Aspects of Land Use, ISSN 0264-8377, ISSN-e 1873-5754, Nº. 99, 2020
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • Food loss and waste (FLW) implies the loss of valuable natural resources; this has a negative impact on economic, environmental, and social issues, worldwide. As a prominent world food producer, Brazil has high levels of food loss and, hence, loss/waste of natural resources. This study aims to estimate the amount of the land footprint (LF) and water footprint (WF) associated with rice and maize losses in Brazil. The investigation involved the analysis of annual data obtained from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the Brazilian Institute for Geography and Statistics (IBGE) regarding the planted areas, harvested area, and the production and loss of rice and maize in Brazil from 1988–2017, in order to estimate the LF and WF associated with rice and maize losses. In Brazil, rice loss is responsible for an average annual LF of 400,000 ha with a negative trend (slope) of 13,852 ha/year and maize loss is responsible for an average annual LF of 1.26 million ha with a negative trend (slope) of 7973 ha/year. In Brazil, the average annual LF of rice loss is about 11.46 % of the rice planted area and the average annual LF of maize loss is about 9.34 % of the maize planted area. Rice loss is associated with an average annual WF of 3.06 billion  m3 and maize loss is associated with an average annual WF of 7.37 billion m3. The average annual WF per ha of planted area for maize and rice losses is 533 m3/ha and 949 m3/ha, respectively. The results reinforce the need for promoting actions to drastically reduce FLW, worldwide. This study encourages the adoption of more drastic public policies in order to reduce FLW and, consequently, decrease the waste of natural resources and curtail the associated environmental impacts.