linguistic:translation
Agriculture

The overwhelming direct cause of deforestation is agriculture. Subsistence farming is responsible for 48% of deforestation; commercial agriculture is responsible for 32%; logging is responsible for 14%, and fuel wood removals make up 5%.

More than 80% of deforestation was attributed to agriculture in 2018. Forests are being converted to plantations for coffee, tea, palm oil, rice, rubber, and various other popular products. The rising demand for certain products and global trade arrangements causes forest conversions, which ultimately leads to soil erosion. The top soil oftentimes erodes after forests are cleared which leads to sediment increase in rivers and streams.

Most deforestation also occurs in tropical regions. The estimated amount of total land mass used by agriculture is around 38%.

Since 1960, roughly 15% of the Amazon has been removed with the intention of replacing the land with agricultural practices. It is no coincidence that Brazil has recently become the world's largest beef exporter at the same time that the Amazon rainforest is being clear cut.

Another prevalent method of agricultural deforestation is slash-and-burn agriculture, which was primarily used by subsistence farmers in tropical regions but has now become increasingly less sustainable. The method does not leave land for continuous agricultural production but instead cuts and burns small plots of forest land which are then converted into agricultural zones. The farmers then exploit the nutrients in the ashes of the burned plants. As well as, intentionally set fires can possibly lead to devastating measures when unintentionally spreading fire to more land, which can result in the destruction of the protective canopy.

The repeated cycle of low yields and shortened fallow periods eventually results in less vegetation being able to grow on once burned lands and a decrease in average soil biomass. In small local plots sustainability is not an issue because of longer fallow periods and lesser overall deforestation. The relatively small size of the plots allowed for no net input of CO to be released.