Brazil - Integrating methane mitigation into national agriculture strategies

Rationale

Brazil has committed to reduce greenhouse gases from agriculture and livestock – primarily through its Plan for Adaptation and Low Emission of Carbon in Agriculture (ABC+). Overall Brazil has committed to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 43% of 2005 levels by 2030. This includes its commitment to collectively reduce methane emissions by 30% by 2030 as a signatory to the Global Methane Pledge. 

Brazil is the world's second largest producer of beef, third largest producer of chickens, and fourth largest producer of pork. Agriculture is central to Brazil's economy, yet is also a major source of the country's greenhouse gas emissions, and particularly methane emissions. 

Brazil's status as a leading tropical agricultural producer and one of the largest economies in the global south provides an opportunity to scale up implementation of SLCP mitigation solutions and develop lessons which other developing countries can benefit from. 

Coordination of government institutions at national and state level is key to creating the enabling environment for efficient and effective SLCP mitigation solutions, such as the manure management systems targeted in this project. 

The current fragmentation of data across institutions poses significant challenges to monitoring and verifying emissions avoided by manure management, resulting in a lack of coordination among stakeholders such as industries, regulatory bodies, and sub-national governments. 

This project was approved in 2022 under the CCAC's call for transformative action in the agriculture sector, at the request of Brazil's Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, and Food Supply (MAPA).

Objectives

This project will support Brazil in it's efforts to reduce agricultural methane and other SLCP emissions by incorporating SLCP reduction measures and monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV) systems into the ABC+ plan.

It will do so by enhancing symbiotic relationships among different Brazilian government institutions and creating mechanisms to share their expertise. In addition, this project will seek to establish sub-national government working groups to update sub-national action plans related to ABC+ as well as the Management of Residues for Animal Production (MRAP) Plan. The target for the cycle 2021-2030 of MRAP is increasing the volume of animal manure treatment to 208.40 million m³ –with a mitigation equivalent to 118.2 million tonnes of CO₂. 

The project has four specific objectives:

1. Achieve change manure management practices through the training of the trainers;

2. Accelerate change in large-scale residue management practices through establishing data on the energy potential of the agricultural sector;

  3. Identify sustainable alternative crop residue and animal manure management to mitigate SLCP emissions; 

4. Implement a robust solution for collecting data on SLCP emissions from manure management. 

Actions

This project address the challenges of harmonising and improving  data collection systems. 

Phase 1: Identifies differences in methodologies adopted and proposals, and creates a uniform approach together with the beneficiaries, Brazilian ministries, researchers, and sector stakeholders. 

Phase 1 will also enhance links between federal and sub-nations governments to develop multidisciplinary skills and safeguard the quality of research training and construction of sub-national plans.

Phase 2: Will create a framework that can be used as a knowledge hub to enhance understanding of the potential for crop residue biogas in the energy and agriculture sector, including building the business case, assessing barriers and challenges, and lifecycle analysis. 
 

Project reference: Brazil - Integrating methane mitigation into national agriculture strategies [AGR-23-001]