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Crop-Livestock-Forest Integration (CLFI) is a strategy that combines different production systems on small, medium, and large-scale farms to optimize land use, boost results, and generate more employment and income in rural areas. Its principles have been improving the quality of agricultural systems in the country and helping to increase meat production capacity, in addition to strengthening the resilience of the agricultural supply chain.
The solution is the result of the scientific community’s search for sustainable systems to overcome the challenge of increasing agricultural production, which is necessary to meet the demand for food, but without degrading the environment. The good news is that the techniques employed not only allow for this balance between production and environmental preservation but have also proven efficient in adding productivity to beef cattle farming.
Furthermore, in a scenario where Brazil is advancing in the establishment of a regulated carbon market, approved in 2024 by the National Congress, CLFI’s potential as a strategy for mitigating GHG emissions in rural areas also stands out. By making rural properties more sustainable and eligible for generating carbon credits, the system places agriculture and livestock at the core of the national effort to confront climate change and fulfill international commitments like the Paris Agreement. It also expands Brazilian access to the global carbon market through production units capable of receiving carbon credits for commercialization, thereby generating an extra revenue stream for the business.
CLFI: A Brazilian Strategy for the Paris Agreement
Due to all its advantages, ILPF was recognized as a sustainable technological process for Brazilian agriculture through the National Crop-Livestock-Forest Integration Policy in 2013. Its expansion is part of Brazil’s voluntary targets assumed under the Paris Agreement – specifically, to expand ILPF systems to 5 million hectares by 2030, a goal already achieved in 2020. With the Low Carbon Agriculture Adaptation Plan – ABC+ – a government sectoral plan for climate in agribusiness published in 2021 – the new target is to reach 10.1 million hectares by 2030.
According to information from the ILPF Network – a public-private partnership association comprising Embrapa, Cocamar cooperative, Bradesco, John Deere, Soesp, Suzano, Syngenta, and Timac Agro – approximately 17 million hectares adopt ILPF production, out of a total of 208 million hectares. Although the target was achieved 10 years ahead of schedule, this number represents only about 8% of the total area, primarily concentrated in Mato Grosso do Sul, Mato Grosso, Rio Grande do Sul, Minas Gerais, and Goiás, although production also occurs in states like São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.
The expansion prospects, however, are promising. Still according to the association, Brazil has 160 million hectares of pastures that can be converted to this production system. This is why, as highlighted by Sergio Schuler, president of the Brazilian Roundtable on Sustainable Livestock, in an article published on Portal DBO, Brazil has “significant potential” to generate certified carbon credits, which can be traded in national and international markets.
Its vast territory and large cattle herd present a scenario of opportunities given the need for environmental preservation and the fight against climate change. With ILPF, trees are present in pastures, which contributes to the mitigation of GHG emissions in different ways.
The most direct relationship is through its natural process of photosynthesis, which consists of capturing CO₂ (carbon dioxide) – one of the GHGs – from the atmosphere and storing it in wood, leaves, and soil, in exchange for oxygen. The accumulation of carbon in trees could generate carbon credits for the producer, as shown by research from Embrapa Sudeste. For eight years, two types of systems were monitored: a silvopastoral system, combining trees with cattle; and an agropastoral system renewed with corn cultivation. The conclusion was that both systems provided carbon accumulation and, consequently, mitigated methane production by the animals.
Indirectly, there is a reduction in the need to open new pasture areas, thus avoiding deforestation, as ILPF improves land use efficiency, increasing productivity. In other words, more production in the same area. Finally, this sustainable productive intensification improves cattle feed. By feeding on more nutritious pastures, cattle have more efficient digestion and, consequently, lower methane emissions, in addition to growing faster and benefiting from better thermal comfort provided by the microclimate generated by the tree foliage.
On the eve of COP30, which will be held in Belém, Pará, this potential gains even greater geopolitical and economic relevance. The conference is expected to place nature-based solutions at the center of the global debate, such as productive reforestation and market mechanisms for financing the green transition — areas where Brazil can excel through ILPF. The adoption of this strategy can serve as a showcase to demonstrate that it is possible to align the expansion of agricultural production with the decarbonization of the rural economy, a relevant topic in climate negotiations over the next decade.
For these reasons, in addition to being one of Brazil’s standalone targets in the Paris Agreement, ILPF also contributes to other important goals assumed by Brazil in the international treaty on climate change signed in 2015:
- Reduce GHG emissions by 37% by 2025 relative to 2005 levels (with an indication of a 43% reduction by 2030). The most recent update to this target was made during COP29, held in November 2024, when the country submitted its new Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) with a commitment to reduce GHG emissions by 59% to 67% by 2035, compared to 2005.
- Restore and reforest 12 million hectares of forests by 2030. This target was reaffirmed in 2024 with the launch of the new version of the National Native Vegetation Recovery Plan (Planaveg 2.0), officially presented as the country’s commitment under the Paris Agreement.
- Acccording to the ABC+ Plan, the target for recovering degraded pastures was updated, increasing from 15 million hectares to 30 million hectares from 2020 to 2030. However, through Decree No. 11.815/2023, the National Program for the Conversion of Degraded Pastures into Sustainable Agricultural and Forestry Production Systems (PNCPD) was created in December 2023, establishing a greater national ambition: to recover and/or convert up to 40 million hectares in 10 years, i.e., by 2033.
Success stories and pioneering
In a pioneering initiative, Minerva Foods, back in 2020 and 2021, conducted a study in partnership with the Institute for Forest and Agricultural Management and Certification (Imaflora). The project was the first to collect primary data to measure the carbon balance of 25 supplier farms across five South American countries and five different biomes. The results, released at COP 26, revealed that participating farms emitted, on average, 44% less GHG than the world average, which is estimated at 19.9 tons of CO₂ per ton of meat produced (tCO2e).
One of the study participants, Fazenda Corumbiara, in Rondônia, proved to be a success story of how crop-livestock integration can significantly reduce carbon emissions in livestock farming. With 16.8 thousand hectares and over 20 thousand head of cattle, the farm had about 30% of its open area used for cultivating grains that feed the cattle in confinement. After harvest, the same space is converted to pasture, maximizing soil use, reducing costs, and mitigating emissions. Another distinguishing feature is the closed-loop management, where animals are born and complete their entire production cycle within the farm itself.
The result of these practices was significant: the recorded emission intensity was 11.53 tCO₂e per ton of meat produced — 42% below the world average. The property’s total balance was 33,609.2 tons of CO₂e. Although still positive, the index confirms that the combination of management strategies and system integration can consistently reduce the balance between carbon emissions and removals from the atmosphere.
The measurement followed a methodology aligned with the global guidelines of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2019 and the GHG Protocol, with direct data collection on the properties and analysis validated by a digital platform to ensure transparency.
In the same study, Fazenda Santa Elena, in Colombia — which adopts native species conservation practices — achieved a negative carbon balance, with -533.3 tons of CO₂e and an emission intensity 45% lower than the global average. These results reinforce that productive integration, combined with sustainable management, is a concrete path for livestock farming to reduce its emissions and approach carbon neutrality.
Created in 2021, the Renove Program is one of the company’s main strategies for this, focusing on reducing emissions from its value chain. The initiative specifically addresses the three pillars that the president of the Brazilian Roundtable on Sustainable Livestock, Sergio Schuler, mentions as obstacles to the expected growth of ILPF – lack of access to credit, technical information, and training. For him, however, effective public policies and government incentives are also essential to stimulate the adoption of sustainable practices throughout the national territory, helping Brazilian livestock farming to consolidate itself as a global sustainability success story.
Initiatives like this reinforce the importance of demonstrating, during COP30, that low-emission production is possible. This is, in fact, one of the themes that the Company will address during its participation in the event. Concrete cases from the Brazilian private sector — such as that of Minerva Foods — can be crucial for consolidating Brazil’s image as a protagonist in global sustainable agriculture and expanding the country’s access to the international carbon credit market.