Back to the Future: Restoring Productivity to Degraded Cropland and Pastures Can Help Preserve Forests

The Cerrado, Brazil’s vast, diverse, tropical savanna, has in recent decades been degraded by intensive agriculture, overgrazing, and deforestation. As these challenges are exacerbated by a changing climate, almost 18 million hectares of soil lie barren or have become low-productive pastureland.

 Reverte is an ambitious collaborative effort led by Syngenta and The Nature Conservancy (TNC) to provide tools and technical support that enable local farmers to restore the degraded lands of the Cerrado ecoregion and make a living. The project aims to 1) reduce the rate of deforestation and land use change to agriculture, 2) demonstrate the technological viability and economic potential of land regeneration, and 3) enable farmers and landowners to improve productivity of degraded soils. Reverte applies systems approaches that integrate a variety of technologies and production practices, financing, seed varieties adapted to local conditions and soils, agronomic practices that improve soil health, and precision agriculture and other digital tools, giving growers the capacity to control and monitor improvements in their soil conditions.

SfL Pathways: carbon sequestration, soil health, water management, sustainable intensification, precision agriculture

 Addressing SDGs: zero hunger, decent work and economic growth, responsible consumption and production, climate action, life on land

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