succeeded by land speculators and poor ranchers from other regions, attracted by low-price lands; they’ll put down the remaining forest to raise cattle and subsistence agriculture – with productivity decreasing each year, until they exhaust soil nutrients.
Indeed, swidden (slash and burn) agriculture was common historically (including in Europe and the southern United States). However, now that we can replace nutrients with artificial fertilizers, it seems like that would be more profitable. Do you have data on what fraction of the land is just abandoned?
That’s a good point, thanks for your comment. It’ll take me a little while to get a guesstimate for that—with a proper disctinction between abandoned land and places that get to some sort of equilibrium of low productivity. I’m not sure if replacing nutrients would significantly change things for the Amazon production, as it would still be impacted by the equatorial climate, and the lack of infrastructure (away from the main ports, with terrible roads) and of human capital.
Indeed, swidden (slash and burn) agriculture was common historically (including in Europe and the southern United States). However, now that we can replace nutrients with artificial fertilizers, it seems like that would be more profitable. Do you have data on what fraction of the land is just abandoned?
That’s a good point, thanks for your comment. It’ll take me a little while to get a guesstimate for that—with a proper disctinction between abandoned land and places that get to some sort of equilibrium of low productivity. I’m not sure if replacing nutrients would significantly change things for the Amazon production, as it would still be impacted by the equatorial climate, and the lack of infrastructure (away from the main ports, with terrible roads) and of human capital.