Sustainability of Livestock Systems in the Pampa Biome of Brazil: An Analysis Highlighting the Rangeland Dilemma

Abstract

The objective of this study was to analyse the sustainability of different livestock systems in the Brazilian Pampa biome, from the perspective of the rangeland dilemma. We used the indicator-based framework for evaluating the sustainability of natural resource management systems (MESMIS). These were constructed for social, economic and environmental dimensions, and they were measured across a study suite of 115 establishments, representing the rangeland livestock system (RLS), intensive livestock system, and livestock–agricultural system (ALS). Indicator averages were compared between three systems via ANOVA and Tukey test. The results allocated a higher level of sustainability to RLS. When the three land-use systems were analysed across the dimensions, significant differences were found in their environmental sustainability, with the ALS presenting poorer results. Within each dimension, there were significant differences in the indicators for production systems, social participation and capital flow. We discussed two main points: the results found through the concept of the rangeland dilemma, by exploring its conditions, in addition to exposing the concept of functional integrity. In conclusion, an approach to develop policies for the Pampa is to recognize the rangeland as a “common good”, to generate income and stimulate the local economy.

1. Introduction

Natural (or native) pastures comprise one and two thirds of the global land inventory, including deserts, steppes, grasslands, pampas, scrublands, and tree savannas; they are spread over five continents—in plains, mountainous, and flooded lands, and in tropical, temperate, and polar zones [1]. Rangelands have been historically important for the economy of all continents. For many centuries, nations have facilitated the social and economic development of their people by developing national water and mineral resources and exploiting their biodiversity, especially through livestock husbandry in rangelands.

In South America, the Pampa biome is a rangeland that occupies approximately 750,000 km², including parts of Argentina, Uruguay, and Brazil. The Pampa biome stands out for its water wealth, soil and vegetation, and imposing biodiversity, a part of which is yet to be scientifically investigated [2,3]. It has been estimated that the biome biodiversity is represented by approximately 3000 plant species, including a wide variety of grasses and legumes, as well as 500 species of birds, and more than 100 species of land mammals [4,5].

The landscape includes plains, small mountains, rocky hills, and gently rolling relief, accompanied by riparian and hillside forests, shrubby formations, and wetlands. The Pampa biome has a history of agrarian occupation and of nurturing the social development of the gaucho, who managed extensive livestock systems, especially cattle and sheep [6,7,8,9,10,11]. Thus, the socio-productive and man–nature relationship dynamics in this biome have allowed the Pampean landscape to be maintained for generations.

However, in the last 50 years, this landscape has been transformed by advances in agriculture and changes in economic, social, environmental, cultural, political, and institutional factors [10,12,13,14]. According to these studies, the transformation started when many local and global stakeholders began to see the rangeland as an “empty” space that should be exploited more profitably and began to regard extensive cattle ranching as a relatively unprofitable production system.

A case in point can be made in the fact that the Pampa biome region of Brazil, located in the southern half of the state of Rio Grande do Sul, has been considered for the last 100 years to be a poorly developed region with low economic dynamics [15,16,17]. A social construct for the development of this region has been adopted by opinion-shapers and policymakers, and this has legitimized the expansion of agriculture over the Pampa biome under the banner of developing the economy of Brazil’s extreme south.

This expansion can be witnessed through official data. According to IBGE—Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics [18], the area planted with soybeans in the municipalities belonging to the Pampa biome in Brazil increased from 686,000 hectares in 2000 to 2.67 million hectares in 2019. According to [19], the increase in the price of soybeans, which started in the 2000s, encouraged the expansion of soybean and rice cultivation in the Brazilian Pampa, transforming much of the region’s known native pastures into agricultural land. This scenario caused a restructuring of the local productive spaces, previously dedicated almost exclusively to beef cattle raising.

Animal production systems based on pasture are carbon equivalent sinks. Although the isolated animal component could be a methane source, the grass component is a major carbon sink, being able to counteract also grain production systems that are carbon releasers [20]. Most of the so-called hybrid systems (ALS) are using cultivation techniques that released carbon stored for centuries in natural plants root systems and using part of this nutrients for producing grains that are used as animal feed elsewhere, not as human feed [21,22].

Therefore, natural grasslands, replaced by years of agricultural production, take decades to be fully restored. Consequently, with natural grassland replacement, the ecosystem loses much of its environmental capability, especially in terms of biodiversity, carbon and water sequestration, and erosion control. Moreover, the recent production and socioeconomic transformations have caused a series of changes across the pampa territory, including the adoption of technological innovations in animal husbandry, either with or without crop production [23].

This presents a dilemma. On one hand, Pampa biome rangelands provide essential environmental functions such as the maintenance of water cycle, erosion control, conservation of biodiversity, and protecting fundamental social metrics for future generations. On the other hand, it leads to poor development of these regions. From an economic viewpoint, the fertile lands could have been used for agriculture, especially for grain production, motivated by the dynamics of international trade and increasing Brazil’s GDP. Both sides of this dilemma relate to the sustainability of the different livestock systems in Brazil’s Pampa biome.

This transformation scenario has redefined the livestock production systems explored in the territory. According to [13,23,24,25] there are three different livestock production systems in the Brazilian Pampa biome: the rangeland livestock system (RLS), exclusive livestock farming in the rangeland, with low use of external inputs; the intensive livestock system (ILS), livestock farming in the rangeland, intensified with nutritional management of cultivated pasture and mineral and/or protein and energy supplementation; and the agricultural- livestock system (ALS), a cattle farming operation integrated with grain agriculture, in particular with soy and/or rice crops.

Therefore, the objective of this study was to evaluate the social, economic, and environmental sustainability of the three main livestock systems used in the Brazilian Pampa biome to solve the “rangeland dilemma.” Thus, in this paper, conservation of natural grasslands’ diversity is discussed based on the evaluation of social, economic, and environmental sustainability of three major livestock systems in Brazilian Pampa Biome. “The rangeland dilemma” is referred to the paradoxical need for conservation of slightly “anthropized” natural ecosystems and socio-economic dynamics capable of generating regional development. Sustainability indicators were created by means of MESMIS operational cycle and tested by applying 115 questionnaires in cattle farms with establishment of the three livestock systems in the Brazilian Pampa Biome.

Silveira et al. [19] found that the comparative sustainability of different livestock systems in the Pampa biome has not been studied. These authors reported that recent sustainability studies had generally dealt with only one dimension (economic, social, or environmental) and often focused on a single production system format. Furthermore, the rangeland dilemma, a result of recent transformations in the Brazilian Pampa biome, applies to rangelands globally, although it has been poorly studied everywhere, owing to its recent emergence as a sustainability issue. Thus, the present study provides a systematic approach for the analysis of productive transformations focused on the Brazilian Pampa Biome, which can be replicated in other study contexts. Furthermore, this study can serve as a tool for the formulation of public policies toward the sustainable development of the region.

The study is structured as follows: after the introduction, the study context is presented, highlighting the transformations of the rangeland exploitation in the Brazilian Pampa biome, followed by the MESMIS operational cycle, which methodologically substantiates the research. “The MESMIS method was defined by Masera et al. [26] as the procedure for evaluating the economic, social, and environmental sustainability of livestock systems in the biome. The choice is justified by the method’s capability to create and measure sustainability indicators using the participation of the local actors themselves, from an interdisciplinary perspective. Subsequently, the results are presented, based on the critical points and sustainability indicators measured in 115 cattle farms in the Brazilian Pampa. Finally, the results are discussed in order to substantiate and prove the existence of the rangeland dilemma. This approach also addresses the importance of this study in proposing public policies that allow for the sustainable exploitation of natural resources of this biome. Thus, the article contributes to scientific research by presenting an analysis method that can be tested in other contexts where the rangeland dilemma may need to be verified.

2. Materials and Methods

2.1. Context of the Study: The Brazilian Pampa Biome and the Historical Dynamics of Rangeland Exploitation

The Brazilian Pampa biome is located in the state of Rio Grande do Sul. It occupies approximately 177,000 km², or just over 2% of Brazil, and 63% of the state (Figure 1). The flattened relief ranges between 500 m and 800 m, and it enjoys a subtropical climate with mild temperatures, regular rainfall, and fertile soil. This facilitated its original development for livestock ranching, which contributed to the local and national economies [27]. The Pampa territory consists primarily of three micro-regions within Rio Grande do Sul—the Campanha Meridional, Campanha Ocidental, and Campanha Central—comprising 19 municipalities [18].

Figure 1. Location of the Pampa biome in South America and Brazil and the research area (Source: Adapted from [28]).

The landscape of the Pampa biome, with its predominance of natural grasslands, predates the Pleistocene (13,000 years BP), during which it supported predominantly large animals (horses, camelids, giant sloths, macrauchenia, and toxodons), as well as the first humans [5,29]. Paleontological studies have suggested that the biodiversity of the pasture flora was conserved by the grazing megafaunas, in combination with the first human groups who used fire for hunting purposes. These grazing and burning practices continued during the following eras that were dominated by smaller animals; these animals were also hunted by the indigenous people. It has been suggested that without these practices, the native pastures would have evolved into forests [30,31,32,33].

When the Europeans first arrived in the 16th century, the tribes inhabiting the area, now known as Rio Grande, do Sul (Brazil), were the Charruas and Minuanos, who were dependent on hunting, fishing, and gathering, and the Guaranis and Chanás, who were more involved with farming. The Spanish Jesuit missionaries, who aimed at catechizing the local people and building a new society, were able to settle the Guaranis, an ethnic group accustomed to villages. The Jesuits brought seeds and animals to maintain their reductions (controlled farming areas); they brought exotic animals to the Pampa, including cattle, mules, horses, and sheep, and found the natural environment favorable for their development [34]. The Jesuits raised loose cattle in the so-called “vacarias”, and these bovines proceeded to reproduce in large numbers because of the favorable conditions of the Pampa.

At the beginning of the 17th century, in response to barriers on importing African slaves, the sugar farmers in the São Paulo region sought to use the native people as slave labor for their crops. Thus, the “bandeirantes” (expeditioners) from São Paulo, slave hunters for sugar properties, entered the unexploited territories in search of labor, finding indigenous people already disciplined for work in the Jesuit reductions. These incursions by slavers hunting for native Indians and their ongoing attacks on the Jesuit reductions led to the emigration of the Jesuits and proliferation of the now-wild cattle—that is, cattle that lived unconfined in the natural grasslands. Noting the economic, food, and work potential of these cattle, the “bandeirantes” intensified their incursions into the territory, whose colonial ownership was still in dispute during that time between Portugal and Spain. With the “bandeirantes” arrival, the weakening of the reductions, and the favorable environment for reproduction, cattles expanded throughout the Pampa of Brazil and became a large herd. According to historical reports, by 1700, the wild herd in Rio Grande do Sul was estimated to be 48 million [29].

By the end of the territorial wars between Portugal and Spain, today’s territorial boundaries were established, dividing the Pampa between Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay. With the allocation of free allotments, between the 17th and 19th centuries, a social and productive organization was established around the ranches, involving re-domesticating the wild cattle that lived unrestricted following the end of the Jesuit reductions [35,36,37]. The allotments were huge native countryside areas involving thousands of hectares, and they were donated by the colonial (and then imperial) governments to their deserving servants, especially from the military, to populate, and thus secure national borders with Uruguay, Argentina, and Paraguay.

Once the process of Pampa colonization by cattle and sheep was established, gaucho society started making a significant contribution to the colonial/imperial Brazilian economy. This was mainly achieved by supplying cattle products to domestic and international markets [10,15]; these included primary products such as leather, wool, jerked beef, and fresh meat since the advent of refrigeration at the beginning of the 20th century [7,8].

However, the biodiversity of the Brazilian Pampa biome began to be threatened by the poor management of the rangeland. The issues included neglecting pasture rotation and overgrazing, and they became significant from the second half of the twentieth century. This led to reduced native grass coverage and proliferation of the invasive annoni grass (Eragrostis plana) from South Africa, resulting in pasture degradation [29]. These damaged pastures produced less meat and created opportunities for a third environmental transformation cycle to advance over the Pampa, i.e., the industrialization of agriculture [29].

At the end of the 19th century, there was a strong wave of European migration, mainly from Italy and Germany to the northern part of Rio Grande do Sul (the Atlantic Forest biome); this was another important factor contributing to these environmental transformations. In the second half of the 20th century, descendants of these immigrants migrated to the fields of the Brazilian Pampa and the northern and central-western regions of Brazil in response to public policies seeking to expand the agricultural frontier. These immigrants brought a culture of rural exploitation to the Pampa based on agriculture, which, up to that point, had not been widespread in the region. Thus, many of today’s grain producers in the Pampa biome of Brazil, who form the basis of the agriculture business there, are heirs to this agricultural colonization.

Replacement of rangelands with agriculture has been a major cause of the current biome degradation. To maintain or increase livestock productivity, the producer replaces degraded native pastures with an agricultural crop and cultivates non-native pastures in the same area to increase fodder production for the herd. This temporary substitution, which lasts for one or two years, opens up space for permanent agriculture implementation in a Pampa rangeland area in an entrepreneurial manner, as noted by several authors, including [29,38,39].

Thus, the debate regarding the expansion of the Brazilian Pampa biome exploitation and the recent dilemma of the rangeland is consolidated. This dilemma can be explained by defining land use by productive systems, with a conservationist character of the pastoral ecosystem or agricultural systems, with a significant impact on the soil-plant-atmosphere system. This process reveals the existence of three different livestock production systems in the biome: extensive livestock farming on the rangeland, intensive livestock farming on the rangeland, and livestock farming integrated with grain crops, initially rice and more recently soybean farming.

The livestock systems in the Brazilian Pampa biome are exploited for beef and/or lamb production. The cattle breeds raised are predominantly British, such as Hereford and Aberdeen Angus, and they cross breed with Brahman breeds. The predominant sheep breeds are Corriedale, Polwarth and Texel. The livestock properties, according to the agricultural census of IBGE—the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics [40], have an average area of 348 hectares, but with strong heterogeneity in size, some establishments with less than 30 hectares and others with more than 2000 hectares. The nutritional management of the herd is based on the natural grasslands. Part of the cattle farms use cultivated pastures during the cool season, mainly with annual grasses such as Oats (Avena sativa and Avena strigosa) and Ryegrass (Lolium multiflorum). Mineral and/or protein and energy supplementation can also be found. Cattle raising is sometimes integrated with grain farming, called “agricultural-livestock system,” The main integrated crops are soybean and rice.

As mentioned previously, this diversity of production in the Brazilian Pampa biome is basically developed in three livestock systems [13,23,24,25]: (a) rangeland livestock system (RLS)—cattle farming exclusively in the rangeland; (b) intensive livestock system (ILS)—cattle farming in the rangeland, cultivated pasture and supplementation; (c) agricultural- livestock system (ALS))—cattle farming integrated with grain agriculture, especially soy and rice cultivation. Thus, these three systems were analyzed and compared with respect to environmental, social, and economic sustainability to solve the rangeland dilemma.

2.2. The MESMIS Method and Its Implementation

Our work involved applying a mixed, descriptive approach, using the MESMIS method (from the Spanish “Marco para Evaluación de Sistemas de Manejo de Recursos Naturales Incorporando Indicadores de Sustentabilidad” [26,41], which can be generally translated to mean an Indicator-based Framework for Evaluating the Sustainability of Natural Resource Management Systems. The MESMIS method seeks to apply the concept of sustainability, identifying variables and indicators to help establish sustainability issues in rural communities, and collaborating with stakeholders for an appropriate symbiosis between them and their environment [26].

According to [42], the MESMIS method involves applying the following guidelines: (a) Sustainability is defined by seven general attributes: productivity, stability, reliability, resilience, adaptability, equity, and self-sufficiency; (b) The sustainability analysis is only valid for a specific production system in a given geographical location (with prior spatial delimitation of the applicable region, community, and production unit), over a given period; (c) The evaluation process should be participatory, using an interdisciplinary perspective and including external and internal evaluators (farmers, technicians, community representatives, researchers, etc.); (d) Sustainability should be measured by comparing two or more systems, using either transverse or longitudinal sections. The MESMIS operationalization involves a six-step assessment cycle, as shown in Figure 2. This operationalization has already been tested and used in several empirical objects, such as [43].

Figure 2. Summary of the research steps based on the MESMIS operational cycle (Source: Adapted from [42]).

The MESMIS operational cycle was first used to define the RLS, ILS, and ALS Brazilian Pampa biome livestock systems. At this stage, we also conducted documentary and bibliographic research on the importance of the Pampa biome socio-ecosystems, looking at the regional history and the processes of human occupation and consequent landscape transformation, as already explained in the introduction.

The construction of the indicators began at stage 2 of the MESMIS evaluation cycle, with the implementation of a participatory methodology with researchers and extensionists, with a total of sixteen (16) professionals, in order to identify the critical points (strengths and weaknesses) of the livestock systems of the Brazilian Pampa biome. Strategies such as brainstorming and mobile visualization were used in this step. The constitution of this group followed the MESMIS premise of “interdisciplinary,” and it involved researchers from the Federal University of Pampa (Universidade Federal do Pampa, UNIPAMPA) and the Federal University of Santa Maria (Universidade Federal de Santa Maria, UFSM), extension workers from the Technical Assistance and Rural Extension Company (Empresa de Assistência Técnica e Extensão Rural, EMATER/RS), and local government representatives.

Then, in step 3 of the evaluation cycle, a new participatory discussion group was established, involving eight (8) farmers, for the construction and selection of the indicators of social, economic, and environmental sustainability of the systems, with reference to the critical points identified in step 2. The participating farmers develop the livestock activity in the Pampa biome, representing the three systems under analysis. This resulted in the construction of indicators to measure sustainability in the economic, social, and environmental dimensions of livestock production systems, with their weights defined based on the group’s consensus, as presented in Table 1.

Table 1. Description of economic, social and environmental sustainability indicators.

Dimensions	Indicators	Weight	Description
Social	Education	15	Educational level and training received in the last three years
	Participation and traditional knowledge	10	Level of participation in collective spaces and confirmed production development knowledge.
	Quality of life	50	Measures that involve characteristics of the home infrastructure of producers and employees, sources of water and light, access to roads, education, and health services in rural areas, working conditions and forms of communication (internet, telephone, and TV).
	Succession	25	Measures relating to the existence and predisposition of successors to continue in RLS, ILS, or ALS production.
Economic	Capital flow	20	Origin of family income (agricultural production, retirement, services, etc.), identification of losses and damage from cattle raiding or predators.
	Production system	30	Quality of practices implemented for animal welfare, resistance to parasites, need for food supplementation, use of improved native and /or cultivated pasture, breed standardization, access to inputs and use of technical assistance.
	Land property	15	Percentage of total land owned.
	Financial autonomy	20	Level of indebtedness (ratio between debt and annual gross revenue) and existence of accounting and production management controls.
	Transmissibility	15	Measure of the capacity to transmit the productive system to future generations (area per heir)
Environmental	Rangeland conditions and management	65	Relationship between total and field load capacity: level of rangeland degradation (% forage, weeds, and uncovered areas, forms of weed control)
	Cultures	20	History and extent of incorporating agriculture into the system
	Environmental conscientiousness and legislation	10	Disposal (or not) of veterinary and agrochemical product packaging in authorized locations; having environmental licenses for fuel storage and dam construction; separation and delivery of rural garbage for recycling.
	Invasive/exotic animal species	5	Presence/absence of exotic animals and predators on the property

The completion of step 3 of the evaluation cycle resulted in the construction of a questionnaire, which had 44 variables for use in quantifying the 13 sustainability indicators. The sustainability value of each dimension (social, economic and environmental) was composed by the sum of the weights of the indicators, ranging from 0 to 100. In a specific analysis of sustainability within the dimensions, each indicator was weighted; the closer the value was to 100, the greater was the sustainability allocated to the indicator within its dimension. A detailed description of each indicator, their weights, the variables that compose them and how they are measured can be found in Appendix A Table A1. The evaluation cycle (measurement and monitoring of the indicators using a questionnaire in the field) started in step 4. To select a suitable farm sub-set for sampling, we used the ‘sampling for estimating a population proportion’ technique [44], resulting in a 115-farm sampling suite, distributed as shown in Table 2.

Table 2. Sample stratification, based on Brazilian Pampa biome micro-regions.

Biome Micro-Region	RLS	ILS	ALS	Total
Campanha Ocidental	10	10	10	30
Campanha Central	11	11	13	35
Campanha Meridional	16	16	18	50
Total	37	37	41	115

A pre-test of the questionnaire was conducted with two rural producers and two specialists to verify the questions’ suitability, and the modified questionnaire was applied in the field to the stakeholder subject base listed in Table 2. The survey took place from June to November 2018.In Stage 5, the integration and presentation of the results was carried out using the techniques for qualitative analysis of documents (such as biome history, occupation process, and transformations), and quantitative analysis of descriptive statistics and hypothesis tests (livestock system sustainability indicators). Although the MESMIS enables the analysis of indicators both by attributes and by dimensions of sustainability [45], we opted in this study for the analysis of indicators between and within dimensions (economic, social, and environmental). Indicator analyses relied on graphic representation using radar graphics, which facilitated the sustainability indicator analysis in the context of comparing the dimensions.

The sustainability indicators were compared between the livestock systems—RLS, ILS, and ALS—using analysis of variance, and multiple mean comparisons were conducted using Tukey’s test, with a 10% maximum level of significance. The conclusions and recommendations from step 6 were used as discussion topics; this allowed results to be integrated with the rangeland dilemma perspective to establish future sustainability scenarios for Brazilian Pampa biome society and natural resources.

3. Results

Evaluation of Sustainability of Brazilian Pampa Biome Livestock Production System

The assessment of sustainability, based on the identification of the dynamics of transformations in the exploitation of the rangeland, initially involves the determination of the critical points of the production systems by specialists (researchers and extensionists). Table 3 presents the strengths and weaknesses of the livestock systems in the economic, social, and environmental dimensions and their respective indicators, according to step 2 of the MESMIS methodology.

Table 3. Critical points of livestock production systems in the Brazilian Pampa biome and their respective indicators.

Dimension	Strengths	Indicators
Environmental	Cattle raising in natural grassland	Rangeland conditions and management
	Environmental awareness of producers	Environmental conscientiousness and legislation
Economic	Credit availability	Capital flow
	Liquidity
	Existence of non-agricultural income
	Commercialization and Market
	Animal health	Production system
	Knowledge of production practices technology
	Savings reserve	Financial autonomy
	Low economic and productive risk of the activity	Land property
		Production system
Social	Existence of non-economic motivations (tradition and culture)	Participation and traditional knowledge
Dimension	Weaknesses	Indicators
Environmental	Presence of exotic predators, such as the wild boar	Invasive/exotic animal species
	Presence of invasive native and exotic plants	Rangeland conditions and management
	Pressure of intensive agriculture on the livestock	Cultures
Economic	Low zootechnical indexes	Production system
	Lack of production scale
	Limited use of economic management tools	Financial autonomy
	Cattle raiding	Capital flow
	Low transmissibility	Transmissibility
Social	Low level of participation and capacity building	Education
		Participation and traditional knowledge
	Low social reproduction (succession	Succession
	Road, education, and health conditions in rural areas	Quality of life
	Decrease in traditional knowledge	Participation and traditional knowledge
	Resistance to change and conservatism of producers
	Individualism

Source: Research data.

The main strengths of the livestock systems in the Pampa biome are the farmers’ proficiency in production technologies and management, the presence of consumer markets, livestock farming as a source of savings associated with non-agricultural income generation, the availability of credit policies, and exploitation in the rangelands to minimize the environmental impacts on the biome. Meanwhile, there are weaknesses of the livestock systems, such as the low social reproduction of the players, the loss of traditional knowledge, the poor condition of roads, education, and health services in rural communities, and the limited participation of producers in associative initiatives. Additionally, from the economic and environmental point of view, the presence of predators, such as wild boar (Sus scrofa), the increase in invasive exotic plants, such as the Annoni Grass (Eragrostis plana Nees), cattle raide and the pressure of grain agriculture on the traditional cattle raising areas in the biome are noteworthy.

All these elements together gave rise to the indicators of economic, social and environmental sustainability of cattle breeding in the Brazilian Pampa biome, built in a participatory manner by producers and specialists, according to step 3 of MESMIS. Therefore, the three production systems affect the socio-ecosystem of the Pampa differently and determine the sustainability of rural establishment production. In Table 4, we present the results achieved with reference to the social, economic, and environmental sustainability indices by the 115 tested rural facilities, which included representative RLS (n = 37), ILS (n = 37), and ALS (n = 41) landholdings.

Table 4. Sustainability index results for livestock production systems in the Brazilian Pampa.

Dimension	RLS	ILS	ALS	p-Value
Social sustainability	67.59 a	68.74 a	69.35 a	0.842
Economic sustainability	59.73 a	59.08 a	58.47 a	0.914
Environmental sustainability	63.46 a	59.06 a	46.09 b	0.000
General sustainability	63.59 a	62.29 a,b	57.97 b	0.023

Different letters (a and b) indicate significant difference in sustainability index between the systems.

The results indicated that the RLS and ILS achieved the highest general index results for sustainability (p < 0.05). This meant that livestock farms without grain agriculture had a greater capacity to survive and self-perpetuate. These data validated the synergistic role of livestock farming in the Pampa—the more oriented the livestock farm was to preserving native pastures, the higher was the sustainability index.

A segmented analysis of the sustainability results showed that there were no significant differences between the degrees of economic and social sustainability of the systems. This was an important finding, demonstrating that a livestock system integrated with grain agriculture was no more economically sustainable than an exclusive livestock system (whether intensive or extensive).

However, with respect to environmental sustainability, the RLS scored better than the ALS (p < 0.01). When reflecting on the conservation of the Brazilian Pampa biome, this result demonstrated the importance of maintaining and promoting livestock systems that developed exclusively in the rangeland. The data showed that, after the various economic and productivity transformations in the Brazilian Pampa, cattle farming in the rangelands contributed more to the biome’s environmental sustainability. This was a particularly important finding because the Pampa in Brazil has few designated conservation areas; thus, that responsibility for environmental protection falls mainly on the regional RLS and ILS operators [46].

In Figure 3, the indicators for each sustainability dimension between livestock systems are presented comparatively. Clear similarities can be seen in the social dimension trends, with emphasis on high “Succession” indicator values. This demonstrates the existence of successors, and in most establishments, their predisposition to remain in the livestock industry in the future, regardless of the system under analysis.

Figure 3. Sustainability indicators for the social, economic, and environmental dimensions of the RLS, ILS, and ALS cattle systems in the Brazilian Pampa.

Regarding the economic dimension, there were also similarities in the behavior of the indicators between the systems. However, the transmissibility indicator value, which refers to the capacity of the productive system to be transmitted to future generations was low. This indicated that although the livestock systems had successors, as verified in the social dimension, the future continuity of livestock was threatened by the low transmissibility of these systems. This low index indicated that, in the future, production unit (farm) division caused by the number of heirs could cause individual operating areas to become too small, creating a possibility for the subsequent abandonment of livestock activity. In this scenario, caused by lower transmissibility, it was projected that some of the cattle breeding establishments would be leased to third parties for other activities, especially agriculture, whereas others would be commercialized, decreasing the availability of native land in the region.

With respect to the environmental dimension, the sustainability index indicators behaved in a more heterogeneous way. The ALS presented higher index values for this indicator than the other systems and lower values for the other environmental indicators. This dualism revealed something of a paradox in the livestock systems with grain agriculture, in that the operators scored high on environmental awareness but took little effective action to preserve the rangeland fields or to reduce crop introduction to the biome.

The sustainability indicator indexes for the social, economic, and environmental dimensions are presented in Table 5, together with the p-values for the differences in the means between the three systems.

Table 5. Comparison of sustainability indicator index means for the social, economic, and environmental dimensions of Brazilian Pampa livestock systems.

Dimensions	RLS	ILS	ALS	p-Value
Social Sustainability
Participation **	53.24 b	62.43 a,b	65.24 a	0.033
Quality of Life	62.34 a	62.73 a	64.68 a	0.720
Succession	84.86 a	85.95 a	86.34 a	0.969
Training	58.01 a	64.32 a	64.25 a	0.516
Economic Sustainability
Capital Flow ***	50.54 b	57.03 a,b	61.46 a	0.059
Land Property	69.00 a	72.61 a	66.34 a	0.794
Financial Autonomy	67.56 a	72.50 a	64.87 a	0.502
Transmissibility	32.43 a	37.29 a	36.09 a	0.849
Production System *	68.37 a	54.36 b	59.47 b	0.000
Environmental Sustainability
Rangeland management **	59.43 a	54.67 a,b	46.60 b	0.021
Crops *	91.14 a	81.21 a	38.99 b	0.000
Environmental Awareness	40.68 a	42.43 a	53.17 a	0.196
Exotic/Invasive Species	50.81 a	60.81 a	53.66 a	0.453

Different letters (a and b) indicate significant difference in sustainability index between the systems. * p < 0.01; ** p < 0.05; *** p < 0.10.

Significant differences in the social dimension can be seen in the “Participation” index, with a higher value in the ALS compared to that in the RLS (p < 0.05). The “Participation” indicator refers to the level of participation of producers in collective spaces in general, such as classrooms, unions, associations. This result may be linked to the fact that grain farming involves more active learning events, thereby mobilizing ALS producers to participate in aspects such as technology, credit, and commercialization. This contrasts with the situation with respect to RLS, where there has been a history of individualistic (and not particularly collaborative) behavior in the Brazilian Pampa.

With respect to the economic dimension, there was a significant difference between the systems in the indexes for capital flow and production systems. The capital flow indicator refers to the origin of the family income, and in this context, the greater the proportion of income from the livestock system itself, the greater the economic sustainability of the system. The results indicated a higher capital flow value in the ALS compared to that in the RLS (p < 0.10), which showed that RLS operators were more dependent on non-agricultural income, with retirement, for example, affecting the ability of the livestock system by itself to remunerate the personal and enterprise’s production demands. This resulted from the characteristically longer production cycles in the RLS, as opposed to the greater liquidity of the ALS, in that commercial grain production resulted in the ALS enjoying a comparatively abbreviated production cycle.

The RLS results showed a higher sustainability index for the production system indicator than those achieved by both the ILS and ALS (p < 0.01). Production system refers to the quality of production practices implemented in the system and includes measures related to sanitation, nutrition, reproduction, and animal welfare management. The higher the quality of these practices, the greater the economic sustainability of the system. This meant that the RLS embodied better practices compared to the other systems, showing greater concern for animal welfare, resistance to parasites, herd standardization, and sustainable land use.

Significant differences in the environmental dimension were seen in the indexes for Rangeland Management and Crops. The Rangeland Management indicator makes it possible to verify the degree of rangeland conservation, with reference to the management practices carried out under the RLS. Both the RLS and ILS yielded higher indexes for this indicator than the ALS (p < 0.05). This showed that, in the absence of grain agriculture, livestock systems presented better natural grasslands quality, less natural grasslands degradation, and lower requirements for invasive species control, which led to higher environmental sustainability levels. Moreover, the RLS and ILS scored higher sustainability indexes for the Crops indicator (p < 0.01), the evidence of the greater level of anthropogenic intervention seen in the ALS that incorporated grain crops into the rangeland.

4. Discussion

In the context of the Brazilian Pampa biome and based on the historical analysis of the transformations in the natural grasslands exploitation, the results show that there is a dilemma of the rangeland. Thus, initially, we discuss the results found through the concept of the rangeland dilemma, observed through the sustainability assessment of the three production systems found in the Brazilian Pampa biome. Then, we address the need for public policies that value more sustainable livestock systems and minimize the rangeland dilemma, and outline strategies based on the concept of functional integrity.

4.1. The Rangeland Dilemma and Its Conditioning Factors

In the rangeland, the RLS plays an important role from an environmental viewpoint, conserving the biodiversity of the Pampa biome [29,38,39]. However, this system has shown low socioeconomic efficiency when compared to other, more intensive systems, such as ALS (cattle raising based on cultivated pastures), or ILS (cattle raising and integrated soy or rice agricultural production) [47,48].

This conflict is called the rangeland dilemma. The historical transformations in the occupation of the Pampa biome in Brazil, the exploitation of the natural grasslands and consequent changes in socio-ecosystems, evidenced by the assessment of sustainability of livestock systems in this context, demonstrate the existence of this dilemma. When evaluating the three livestock systems characteristic of this biome, it appears that the Rangeland Livestock System has a higher environmental sustainability index, while presenting lower economic sustainability, with an emphasis on the indicator income and remuneration of the farm, when compared to other systems. This is the rangeland dilemma, which highlights the Rangeland Livestock System as the best alternative from the point of view of environmental preservation; however, the system is poorly sustainable from an economic point of view in terms of income, and therefore unattractive to the economic logic prevailing in the region.

Understanding this phenomenon required discussion of two of its main conditions: natural grassland degradation and the lower RLS economic efficiency. Natural grassland degradation by inadequate management was seen as a key contributor to the unsustainability of the livestock socio-ecosystem in the Pampa biome over the medium and long terms. From an environmental standpoint, degradation reduces rangeland biodiversity and creates an imbalance between plant species and the microfauna of the soil–pasture system. From the economic viewpoint, degradation progressively reduces fodder production, and consequently, herd productivity. Faced with this declining productivity, the producer implements an annual crop to eliminate invasive plants and recover some soil fertility by applying chemical fertilizers.

The pasture degradation problem becomes more acute owing to the difficulty in identifying its origins, considering that the process is relatively slow but insidious [1,49,50]. Typically, when the first signs of degradation are detected, it is already too late to realize a full recovery. The producer blames the degradation on either climatic conditions or temporary overgrazing done in response to a particularly high point demand. However, overgrazing is exactly what causes rangeland degradation, which occurs when the pasture cannot regenerate because of excessive periods of grazing, combined with insufficient rest periods. Likewise, artificially intensifying pasture without adequate fertilization not only degrades the field but also limits animal productivity, as soil nutrients become insufficient.

Recovering degraded grasslands before the damage becomes irreversible involves implementing a total halt to grazing—that is, removing grazers until the recovery process has begun. Then, the process could require mechanical interventions, such as soil decompaction to facilitate infiltration, removal of invasive plant species, and green, organic, or chemical fertilization. Several recommendations aimed at facilitating rangeland and cultivated/mixed pasture recovery have been promoted in recent decades, including those by [47,51,52,53,54].

However, owing to the cost and complexity of rehabilitating degraded pastures, the alternative used widely to restore fodder productivity is to implement an annual crop; the income from this crop can supplement recovery costs while providing a new (although cultivated) pasture [49]. Thus, the rangeland has been largely degraded by implementing a culture of annual cropping, and it currently has limited regeneration capacity [55]. Hence, the RLS has evolved into the ILS, as natural grassland has been replaced by cultivated pasture. The entry of entrepreneurial agriculture based on annual crops—or on perennial crops such as tree plantations (eucalyptus and pine)—has appeared as the next phase, implemented in the search for higher productivity per area unit [38].

Therefore, we could confirm that rangeland degradation due to inadequate management, and its necessary recovery offered opportunities for a sequence of production intensification in multiple stages. These were initiated by introducing cultivated pasture and annual crops to maintain or improve farm productivity. The intensification could be characterized as a more economically efficient practice, although less environmentally sustainable, as corroborated by the sustainability indicators for the three systems evaluated in our work.

The corporate agricultural production, as demonstrated by the soybean crop, especially in the natural grasslands of the Brazilian Pampa Biome, is an environmentally unsustainable system. This fact was demonstrated by the results of this research, revealing a lower degree of environmental sustainability in Agricultural-Livestock System. This means that the biodiversity of the rangeland is not renewed in its fullness after soil disturbance or the application of systemic herbicides for the planting of grain crops, which makes the return of natural pastures impossible. In addition, commercial agricultural practice exploits the natural resources of soil and water, degrading and contaminating them, as it uses many resources/inputs external to the environment, mainly of chemical origin.

Rangeland degradation and the subsequent production intensification in the Pampa biome have been affected by recent changes in livestock farming. Over the generations, rural properties in the Brazilian Pampa have been divided among heirs, reducing the area available per family unit. This has often led to leasing or selling the smaller areas, while lifestyle changes have generated new demands, which in turn require higher levels of income generation from the land to survive and remain in the countryside. These conclusions were corroborated by the research results. The “Transmissibility” indicator gave rise to the lowest sustainability index in the three systems evaluated, revealing the low likelihood of the productive systems being transmitted intact to future generations. We also saw that the RLS displayed Capital Flow indicator values lower than those displayed by both the ILS and ALS; this indicates that RLS representatives were more dependent on non-agricultural incomes, such as retirement, to complement their personal remuneration and production demands.

Thus, the rangeland dilemma emerged from the tension between two development paradigms. First, we noted the paradigm of sustainable development, based on the conciliation of economic development with the preservation of natural resources, capable of guaranteeing the survival of future generations. In contrast, we noted economic growth promotion, in a production logic that was based on intensifying land and natural resources use, which meant seeking short-term increases in productivity, land income, foreign exchange generation, and exports.

The historical dynamics of the exploitation of the rangeland leads to the conclusion that the economic growth based on the intensification of land use has predominated in the Brazilian Pampa. Similarly, as found by [56] in the Pampa of Argentina, driving social, organizational, and economic changes, as well as the displacement of small producers out of agriculture. Thus, it is necessary to consider future policies that favor the sustainable development, by integrating biome preservation and economic efficiency in rangeland systems.

4.2. Public Policies and Strategies for the Sustainability of the Rangeland in the Brazilian Pampa Biome

Facilitating sustainability of the rangeland livestock production in the Pampa biome should be a fundamental principle for opinion-shapers and decision-makers at local and regional levels, as well as for the rural producers themselves. This has become evident from our research results, which suggested that RLS and ILS operators had the lowest rates of environmental awareness among the evaluated systems, despite contributing more to the conservation of the environment.

Therefore, prioritizing a paradigm of sustainable rangeland socio-ecosystem development means proposing comprehensive and efficient public policy measures with collective awareness and training programs for rural stakeholders that emphasize sustainable rangeland management. This is required even if the environmental importance of rangeland and the role of cattle raising in its conservation, are recognized. If there are no public actions or policies that allow them to be remunerated as guardians of this environment, Pampa biome ranchers will act individually in search of survival; that is, they will take actions seeking short-term success [24]. This lack of support from the State could be crucial for the future of the Brazilian Pampa and locally for stakeholders. It is urgent to neutralize the potential impact of agricultural expansion on biodiversity in the Pampa biome [46], and public policies could play a fundamental role in this.

The rangelands are still seen by the public and economic powers as large, empty, unproductive areas, which could be better used under ILS- or ALS-type operations to boost local, regional, and national economies. This is the production-driven logic of the rangeland dilemma, in which expansion of agriculture in the biome has been favored through specific public policies that favor commodity cultivation, such as the Brazilian rural credit policy [57]. This agriculture expansion scenario in Pampa-type biomes can be found at both national and global scales, and it has been reported for most natural pasture environments, both in Brazil, such as in the Cerrado (located in the highlands of Central Brazil and covering approximately 2 million km²) and in other countries and climate zones [1].

The current Brazilian Pampa scenario of integrating the rangelands with a production-driven logic using natural resources is unsustainable from an environmental viewpoint, as demonstrated herein. This means that rangeland biodiversity is not renewed after grain cultivation, which has made it impossible to fully restore natural grasslands. Furthermore, commercial agricultural practices exploit natural soil and water resources, degrading and contaminating them by using unnatural inputs, mainly chemicals.

However, in support of the production-driven side of the rangeland dilemma, intensive agriculture in the Pampa biome has provided economic returns that have significantly transformed land income generation and the amount of land occupied with ALS. The capital flow indicator shows greater liquidity for ALS, a result of the higher percentage of income earned within the system, as opposed to the greater reliance on non-farm incomes from RLS. However, this research has shown that although ILS and ALS present higher capital flow, they do not offer greater economic sustainability compared to RLS. This is because the production system indicator shows higher values for RLS compared to the others.

Therefore, when considering the rangeland dilemma, in which the economic unsustainability of the RLS is a major issue, [24] were optimistic in presenting livestock as a good business. They underlined that it should be carried out with efficient resource management programs, especially pasture management, and with appropriate resources, including training producers and technicians. RLS system could be better managed enhancing animal production and also ecosystem services, as soil C fixation, by adopting grasslands management practices like forage allowances control or rotational stocking [47,58]. From this perspective, [59] have highlighted the need for public policies that integrate the social and environmental values of meat production in the Pampa biome to add economic value to regional products, conserve cultural traditions, and protect biodiversity in the natural grasslands of southern Brazil.

An alternative scenario would involve policies based on the concept of functional integrity, first proposed by [60] and later developed by [61]. These authors proposed a paradigm shift in natural resource management, which moves from discussing sustainability as a resource sufficiency concept to the idea of the functional integrity of resources. The heart of this concept lies in changing the view that natural resources are sufficient or not for future generations, to a more systemic view; the latter considers the human being as part of the system, which is reproduced and regenerated using techniques and practices involving all elements of the socio-ecosystem.

Functional integrity is therefore not limited to sustainable resource use but also involves producing new resources for the socio-ecosystem. Furthermore, based on this new paradigm, the various techniques and practices for sustainable rangeland management and their implementation, are positioned in the reproduction of the socio-ecosystem. This has been championed in the sustainable agronomic techniques recommended by [62,63,64], in the socio-technical practices proposed by [58] and [24], and in the “payment for ecosystem services” [1,65,66,67,68].

5. Conclusions

This research highlights the rangeland dilemma based on the evaluation of three types of livestock systems in the Brazilian Pampa biome. The evaluation shows that the rangeland production system presents, a greater environmental sustainability, but less economic sustainability, mainly in terms of income generation in comparison with the agricultural system, with the introduction of crops such as soybeans and rice. Although the first system is characterized as economically less efficient, the results of the research did not indicate a significant difference between the overall level of social and economic sustainability of the evaluated systems.

Although the rangeland exploitation offers higher environmental sustainability, this production system, if poorly managed, can cause degradation and endanger the rangeland biodiversity and its capacity to retain water and control erosion. This degradation has led to a cycle of land use intensification, with transformation of rangeland systems into intensive or agricultural systems. From this mosaic of livestock exploitation arises the concept of the rangeland dilemma.

The dilemma appears as a paradox that is formed in the dispute between a paradigm of economic growth, based on the logic of productivism, and a paradigm of sustainable development, based on the sustainability of socio-ecosystems. In this sense, an approach to develop policies for the Pampa biome, understanding its dimensions of functional integration, is to recognize the rangeland as a “common good,” as exemplified by some experiences in many regions globally. This strategy enhances the value of rangeland livestock farming as environmentally sustainable, while also being able to generate income for families and maintain the productive activity, thereby boosting local economies.

It is important to highlight that this study presents a methodology to evidence the rangeland dilemma, which has the potential to be tested in other contexts of land use transformations into livestock production systems that intensify production and introduce entrepreneurial agriculture. Therefore, it is possible to establish a fruitful dialog on development paradigms and search for strategies that unite economic, social, and environmental sustainability.