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Curated

Amazonian Deforestation and the Structure of Households (Phase III) (ICPSR 35995)

Released/updated on: 2015-06-19
Geographic coverage: Brazil, Altamira, Santarem
This project collects new data and updates existing population and environmental data on rural and urban residents in the Brazilian Amazon region. New data include follow up surveys in Santarem, urban samples and satellite data for Altamira and Santarem, and a new study site in the epicenter of mechanized soybean expansion in the state of Mato Grosso, at Lucas do Rio Verde. This includes a complete set of data for the previous 30 years of change in the new study site. The resulting data make this the largest social survey carried out in the Amazon region, with more than 1,000 properties and more than 2,500 households, covering an area in excess of 10,000 square kilometers.
Curated

Diffusion of Sustainable Agriculture in the Amazon [Brazil]: A Panel Database, 1996-2000 (ICPSR 3948)

Released/updated on: 2005-12-15
Geographic coverage: South America, Brazil, Global
Time period: 1996-01-01--2000-01-01

This study, DIFFUSION OF SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE IN THE AMAZON [BRAZIL]: A PANEL DATABASE, 1996-2000, is no longer current. Please see DYNAMICS OF HOUSEHOLD LAND USE AND ECONOMIC WELFARE ON THE AMAZON FRONTIER, 1996-2005, RONDONIA, BRAZIL (ICPSR 25322), which includes a third round of panel data (2005), as well as edits and changes to the previous years (1996 and 2000).

This study gathered farm-level panel data in Ouro Preto do Oeste, Rondonia, Brazil, to determine the relationship between household decisions and land use for Amazonian households. This project was initiated in August 1996 when a stratified random sample of 171 farmers in Ouro Preto do Oeste was selected along with 25 households that participate in the Association of Alternative Producers (APA) to investigate the decisions of farmers using slash-and-burn agriculture and others using sustainable methods of farming. The survey questions consisted of inquiries about the household (including age, education level, farming experience, and number of farm animals owned), lot characteristics (including size and division between pasture, forest, agriculture, and agroforestry), harvest of market and subsistence crops, agricultural and other forms of income, and the use of agroforestry and major influences determining farming techniques. Questions about income derived from agriculture provided information about the harvest of all perennial and annual crops, milk harvest and meat harvest, the amount of each item that was sold, and at what price.

Curated
Simple Crosstabs

Land Use, Agropastoral Production, Family Composition, and Household Economy in Santarem, Para, Brazil, June-August 2003 (ICPSR 34347)

Released/updated on: 2013-04-01
Geographic coverage: Brazil, Global, Santarem
The 2003 Santarem dataset consists of 8 interconnected datasets and 1 linking file. The primary unit of analysis is the rural property or lot. Each lot in the sample contains a minimum of 1 household with a mean of 1.33 households per lot in the final sample. Within households, data were collected on subsets of individuals as well as additional properties used by the households in the study. These 2003 Santarem data come from interviews with farm families in an agricultural zone south of the city of Santarem in the Brazilian state of Para. Santarem is a relatively old settlement within the Brazilian Amazon that has experienced waves of regional settlement in the 1930s, mid-century, and the 1970s. The study region is adjacent to the confluence of the Amazon and Tapajos Rivers and the northern terminus of the BR-163 (the Cuiaba-Santarem Highway). BR-163 links intensive agropastoral production (particularly mechanized soybean farming) in the state of Mato Grosso to Santarem, where the multinational corporation Cargill runs a deepwater port (opened in 2003) for loading soybeans onto oceangoing ships. The opening of this port has accelerated the process of urbanization and led to a transformation from a landscape of small family farming to a landscape of mechanized agriculture (description adapted from VanWey, Leah K., and Kara B. Cebulko, 2007, Journal of Marriage and the Family 69: 1257-1270). The discourse on deforestation has focused on the alarming rates of deforestation in the Amazon Basin to the neglect of the dynamic and reciprocal influences between the human population and the environment. Deforestation is a process mediated by human intervention, from the act of clearing to how such a clearing is used and managed over time. It would be helpful to know whether observable rates of forest removal represent a stage in the developmental cycle of households or represents the simple and direct impact of increasing population in these environments. From the point of view of theory and method, it is necessary to develop new approaches that effectively link demographic process to the interactive relationship of population to specific aspects of an environmental matrix. This project addressed multiple scales, from household dynamics to landscape dynamics and has developed methods by which to scale between them. We hypothesize that as households occupy frontier areas past the first generation, they move from a strategy of managing their land under the constraints of available household labor to a strategy that gives greater recognition of the constraints posed by land quality and of the risks to their farm operation coming from external socioeconomic forces and biophysical constraints. In the first generation, the labor available to a household is determined by the size of the household making the initial trip to the frontier (primarily young couples is common in frontier regions) and later by the fertility of these initial migrants. As these initial migrants age and their children enter adulthood (thereby becoming the second generation), labor supply is determined by the reproductive and land use choices of these children. Given the precipitous decline in female fertility, other factors gain salience in the second generation: the suitability of the land for various uses, the availability of off-farm employment and educational opportunities (both locally and those requiring migration), and macroeconomic factors affecting the economic viability of farming. These decisions then directly determine the entries into and exits from the household. This study investigated five basic questions: (1) Does the changing availability of household labor over the household life cycle affect the trajectory of deforestation and land use change in the same way for later generations of Amazonian farmers as for first generation in-migrants? (2) What are the determinants of changing household labor supply? Specifically, what are the biophysical and socioeconomic determinants of entries into and exits from the household through fertility, migration, and marriage? (3) How are the decisions of households regarding land use and labor allocation constrained by soil quality, access to water supplies, interannual drought events (e.g. El Nino type events), and other resource scarcities? (4) Are there notable differences in land use choices made by landholders who live in an urban area (away from the piece of land owned in the rural area) in contrast to the decisions made by those who live on their rural properties? (5) What are the bases for the precipitous decline in female fertility in these frontier regions, especially the use of sterilization after two pregnancies? Households will be surveyed in the Santarem region, in the Lower Tapajos Basin, Brazilian Amazon to collect detailed demographic, land-use histories, and economic data. The sampling of households for inclusion in the study will be based on a stratified random sample by period of occupation in Santarem, to capture intergenerational processes that preceded the availability of satellite images. Based on the particular combination of methodologies used in this investigation (traditional household surveys, satellite image analysis, and GIS, and the scaling up and down from households to landscape), future environmental changes were projected for the regional landscape under various scenarios of continued settlement, household life cycles, combinations of credit, and changing environmental conditions.