Ranchers and the Colombian Amazon: the project that seeks to reconcile them

They were enemies: in Guaviaregateway to the Colombian Amazonthe ranchers They built their pastures at the expense of the jungle.

But an experiment in accommodating their animals in smaller spaces and reforesting could reconcile the forest with its former predators.

In a place where land is plentiful and state presence is scarce, ‘extensive livestock farming’ progressively advanced: large portions of forest are cut down and fenced off to introduce a few cattle and claim possession over the entire land.

(This is the only place you can eat lab-grown meat.)

But now the trend is for cattle to spend their days in smaller, organized enclosures, rotating between pastures, eating efficiently, without destroying the surrounding jungle.

The production of milk increased, and the remaining space is used to plant trees and try to compensate for the damage caused.

From the air you can see the bites that grazing and illicit coca crops tore out of the thick vegetation that surrounds San Jose de Guaviarecapital of the department, populated during the second half of the 20th century by settlers attracted by
the promise of “a land without men, for men without land“.

(Fertilizer prices fell 6.71% in May).

In the late 1970s, these rumors reached Olga Martineza farmer who is 65 years old today and herds her dairy cows on a property of about 55 hectares. When Martínez arrived there, 45 years ago, the landscape was “only mountain (jungle)“. Although he did not have a chainsaw, cutting down the jungle to become the owner seemed to him “easy“.”Going to throw a machete for one was not impossible, my hands had gotten used to it“, he recalls in an interview with AFP.

But in 2022 he gave up the fellings and signed a “conservation agreement” with the ONF Andina, local subsidiary of the Office National des Forêts (ONF), a French government entity that watches over forests. Since then he has planted some 1,200 trees on his property, without giving up a single head of cattle.

(Venezuela seeks to expel illegal miners from its Amazon region.)

“Both forests and livestock have to coexist because that’s what they live on
people“, explained to AFP Luis Páez, spokesman for the ONF Andina.

(Colombian child activist spoke with UN high commissioner).

With some 30 million heads, the sector represents 1.7% of the national GDP, almost double what coffee contributes, according to the Colombian Federation of Cattlemen (Fedegán).

In places like Guaviare, it is one of the few profitable businesses, due to the absence of paved roads, which makes it difficult to transport perishable crops. Also “It is one of the main drivers of deforestation in our department. The model was to cut down the forest to plant grass (…) a very profitable business“, write down Xismena Martínez, Guaviare government official.

(‘The world cannot and will not be able to live without oil,’ says Opec).

The region lost 25,000 hectares of forest in 2021, according to official statistics. To counteract this trend, the ONF proposed to farmers to fence off a dozen pens of less than one hectare on their properties, where a few dozen animals are placed, and to establish a system of “pasture rotation“.

The cattle remain in the first paddock until the grass is exhausted, then move to a second, and so on, thus optimizing feed consumption and productive space.

(Subsidies for fuel, agriculture and fishing degrade the environment).

“When he returns to the first part, the grass has already recovered” and the cycle starts again, explains Páez. Some 35 owners have joined the program, known as Terramaz.

Cattle

AFP

By confining their cattle instead of betting on extensive grazing, producers free up land that they commit to reforest. In addition, the performance of dairy cows improves “because they don’t walk so much“like when they wandered over large areas, and thus spend less energy, details Nelcy Rodríguez, protected from the hot sun under a cowboy hat.

(Clevercel, after the second-hand cell phone business).

“lhe ten cows that I am milking (…) gave around 40 liters (per day) and now in the small plots they give me between 60 and 55” liters, calculates Rodríguez, whose farm has forests on 15 of its 48 hectares. In 1995 he arrived in rural San José in search of land and found “jungle and coke”, the main ingredient of cocaine. “Each person was cutting down (the forest) to plant coca“, remember.

At the beginning of the 21st century, illicit cultivation -used in the production of cocaine- was substantially reduced due to an aggressive and controversial government fumigation campaign with glyphosate.

(July 3 was the hottest day on record… and there will be more.)

Cattle then became the main line of the local economy. “I planted coca and also bought my animals. (…) When the coca ran out, I already had my cows and I dedicated myself to livestock“, Rodríguez openly recalls, a first-hand witness of the change of mentality among the inhabitants of Guaviare.

“One already regrets going to knock down a tree. On the contrary, we are struggling to reforest“concludes the farmer.

AFP