Sustainable intensification of Brazilian pastures reconciles food security with large-scale soil carbon sequestration

Livestock production is a major contributor to land-use change and greenhouse gas emissions, yet it remains central to food security in many tropical countries. Brazil, the world's largest beef exporter, exemplifies this dual challenge: extensive pasturelands support national production, but widespread degradation limits productivity, accelerates soil carbon losses, and drives pressure for continued deforestation. This study provides the first integrated, national-scale assessment of how sustainable intensification and pasture restoration could simultaneously enhance beef production and contribute to climate mitigation across all Brazilian biomes. Using spatially explicit data on stocking rates, pasture condition, and soil organic carbon (SOC), we quantify productivity gaps and estimate the carbon sequestration potential associated with recovering degraded pastures. Specifically, we integrated municipal livestock records with remote sensing-derived maps and the SoilGrids platform to model regional production and land-use scenarios. Our results indicate that increasing stocking rates within existing pasture areas could raise national beef production by approximately 30% without expanding agricultural land. Alternatively, improved management could reduce pasture area requirements by up to 28% while maintaining current output. Restoring 89 million hectares of degraded pastures would sequester 598 Tg C over 20 years and avoid an additional 381 Tg C in losses, with sequestration rates varying by biome and degradation level. These findings demonstrate that sustainable intensification represents a viable pathway to reconcile food production, land-use efficiency, and climate mitigation. By quantifying the biophysical and territorial dimensions of this transition, our study provides evidence to inform Brazil's climate commitments and global efforts to decouple livestock production from environmental degradation. The results highlight the strategic role of tropical pasturelands in achieving large-scale soil carbon sequestration.