%0 Journal Article
%T Land Use Capability and the Sustainable Scale: An Overview of Agriculture in São Paulo State, Brazil
%A Oscar Sarcinelli
%A Ademar Ribeiro Romeiro
%A Lauro Charlet Pereira
%A Sergio Gomes Tosto
%J Natural Resources
%P 171-180
%@ 2158-7086
%D 2022
%I Scientific Research Publishing
%R 10.4236/nr.2022.138011
%X Establishing a sustainable scale in natural resources management enables
effective economic and ecological policies and guarantees the long-term
sustainability of economic production. In agriculture, land evaluations
determine the land use sustainable scales, that is, those that avoid land
degradation and allow the provision of food, wood, energy, and ecosystem
services over time. The paper assessed São Paulo State¡¯s agricultural
sustainability by analyzing the current land use adequacy to the land use
capability map that follows FAO 1976 ¡°guide for land evaluation¡± and was
applied to <span style=\"white-space:normal;\">S&amp;atilde;</span><span style=\"white-space:normal;\">o</span> Paulo by the State Agricultural Secretariat. Results indicate
inefficiencies in land use at the state level, where more than one-third of
agricultural lands do not satisfy technical land capability indications.
According to technical land use capability, more than 4.5 million hectares are
being underused (economic inefficiency) and another 2.2 million hectares are
being overused (environmental inefficiency). Pasturelands represent the most
unsustainable land use, where 3.7 million hectares are allocated in high quality
lands with high agricultural production potential, and another 0.7 million
hectares are allocated in lands with very low quality for agriculture, most of
than are<span style=\"font-family:Verdana;\"><span style=\"font-family:Verdana;\"><span style=\"font-family:Verdana;\">a degraded</span></span></span><span><span><span style=\"font-family:;\" \"=\"\"><span style=\"font-family:Verdana;\">. To achieve </span><span style=\"font-family:Verdana;\">sustainability, lands
with high agricultural production potential should be u</span><span style=\"font-family:Verdana;\">sed to improve
agriculture and food production and, on the other hand, lands </span><span style=\"font-family:Verdana;\">with very low agricultural production potential
should be used for wood p</span><span style=\"font-family:Verdana;\">roduction, agroforestry, ecotourism and natural
ecosystems conservation. Our </span><span style=\"font-family:Verdana;\">results provide
a framework for improving land use policies in <span style=\"white-space:normal;\">S&amp;atilde;</span><span style=\"white-space:normal;\">o</span> Paulo S</span><span style=\"font-family:Verdana;\">tate and
highlight an opportunity to achieve land use sustainability.</span></span></span></span>
%K Land Use Planning
%K Land Capability
%K Agricultural Sustainability
%U http://www.scirp.org/journal/PaperInformation.aspx?PaperID=119304