Macaúba, a native palm tree, but still little commercially exploited may be the key for Brazil to increase its biodiesel production without the need to open new areas or competition with crops intended for food, such as soybeans. With a five times higher production of oil, the tree has the capacity to contribute to the recovery of pastures and degraded areas, being also an alternative to increase profitability in livestock farms in the country.

"Macaúba is a star. When God made the macaúba forgot to put defects", jokes the doctor in forest management and economics Silvana Ribeiro Nobre, responsible for the preparation of the study "Viability of macaúba for the production of biofuel", commissioned by WWF-Brazil. Considering a demand of 11.5 billion liters of biodiesel in 2030 to meet the determinations of the National Biofuels Program, the survey highlights that it would take 11 million hectares of soybeans to produce all the biodiesel needed to supply the Brazilian market - about ten times the current area, estimated at 1.6 million hectares by Conab.

In the case of Macaúba, the area needed to guarantee the same supply would be 81.8% smaller, of only 2 million hectares. The species produces 6,000 liters of oil per hectare compared to 500 obtained with soybeans, which today accounts for 70% of the raw material used in biodiesel production in the country. Associated with cultivation in integrated systems, the higher productivity of the palm would even supply Brazilian imports of fossil fuel - now threatened by a global supply crisis.

"We have enough livestock area to produce along with macaúba and still increasing livestock productivity because macaúba, in addition to producing in the livestock area, it improves soil conditions, improves water retention conditions, its root system is excellent and it can be produced in the entire cerrado area of Brazil", Silvana notes by highlighting the 60 million hectares destined for livestock in the country and the applicability of macaúba in degraded areas where, today, the use of regenerative techniques advances.

According to mapbiomas data, the percentage of pasture areas with signs of degradation in Brazil went from 70% in 2000 to 53% in 2020, with even more significant advances among severely degraded areas, whose percentage fell from 29% to 14% in the same period (22.1 million hectares). "Of course this is already happening, the improvement of the degraded pastures is there in Mapbiomas, you enter the platform and see it. It is a national trend, which is great news because macaúba will come into synergy with this trend that already exists to improve pastures", says Silvana.

Based on the pasture recovery data, the researcher listed the priority regions for the planting of macaúba considering access infrastructure and the probability of interest of producers in the cultivation of palm trees. Distributed between Mato Grosso do Sul, Mato Grosso and Goiás, they have in common precisely the advance of agriculture over livestock areas and, in some cases, the increase in vegetation cover with forests. "When some producers improve the condition of pastures it makes it easier for others to improve because these neighbors will have these examples, which is very important when we think about rural extension," Silvana recalls.

The focus on livestock areas has another advantage: in addition to contributing to the recovery of pasture, macaúba pie resulting from oil extraction can also serve as food for livestock, reducing dependence on corn and soybean meal, which, each year, weigh more on the cost worksheet of ranchers worldwide. "Her natural place is just pasture. She marries so well with pasture that it is difficult to think that macaúba will expand in an area exclusive to her because this is not even attractive to the producer", notes the conservation coordinator of WWF-Brazil, Ricardo Fuji.

These characteristics make macaúba be able to contribute simultaneously to energy and food security, reducing the pressure on the soybean and corn chain amid record grain prices in the domestic and foreign markets. Native, the tree is a species immune to the oscillations of the international market and could contribute to the creation of a new value chain for Brazilian agribusiness, according to the researchers. "This demand will not compete with food production precisely because it will be consorcized and the natural tendency is to concrop with livestock and without decreasing productivity, on the contrary, it will increase," Fuji points out.

Another advantage in the planting of macaúba is in the scientific development in relation to the cultivation of palm trees. A total of 263 scientific articles on the species were mapped, most of them focused on the factors that influence its productivity from the breaking dormancy of seeds to its industrial processing. In addition, Silvana points out that Brazil has three germplasm banks maintained by universities and research centers, ensuring all conditions for the beginning of large-scale planting in the country.

"There are ten years of serious research, Embrapa and Brazilian universities have done an excellent job. I think Brazil has done a very interesting homework in the area of macaúba, now it's time to put this into practice", adds the researcher.