Land Use Patterns in the Brazilian Amazon: Comparative Farm-Level Evidence from Rondônia

Since the 1970s the Brazilian Amazon has received over 1 million migrant farm households from other regions of the country, many of whom were attracted to government-sponsored frontier settlement programs that offered free tropical forest land. As a result, pressures on tropical forests have intensified along several settlement corridors throughout the region. Despite their importance as agents of landscape change, surprisingly little is known about the land use practices of these farmers. This paper briefly reviews the research literature on smallholder land use patterns in Amazonia, describes the recent history of one important agricultural land settlement program in the western Brazilian Amazon state of Rondônia, and, based on 240 household surveys conducted in three separate settlement locations in the state, highlights key differences in land use patterns among the rural population. Typologies of farming systems are presented on the basis of cluster analysis of land use data and ANOVA tests. The findings indicate considerable complexity and heterogeneity in smallholder farming systems. Spatial variations in farming system types may be due to geographic differences in soil regimes, the social histories of specific communities, and site-specific responses to exogenous variables.