Recently, an increasing concern about the quality of Brazil’s productive agricultural environments (agro ecosystems) has developed. In the last few decades, this
concern has greatly influenced the adoption of ‘‘conservationist cropping systems’’
that are based on lower soil disturbance and leaving plant residue on the soil surface.
Those ‘‘conservation cropping systems’’ most used by Brazilians growers include no tillage systems that use direct seeding, sugarcane harvesting with no previous burning
(green harvesting), green manure and minimum tillage. In Sao Paulo state, the sugarcane cropping system is an example of agricultural system that is changing due to social pressure. Brazilian government has mandated (Act no. 47,700 of March 1st, 2003, regulates the law 11,241 of September 19th, 2002) that in flat sugarcane production areas (degree of slope less than 12% — feasible for mechanical harvest), the use of fire to reduce biomass before harvest must be reduced gradually year after year up to 2021, when burning sugarcane prior to harvest should be banished completely. Areas that are unfeasible for mechanical harvest, but cultivated with this crop (degree of slope greater than 12%) it must be implemented a gradual
reduction in the use of burning for harvest, which should gradually reduce to zero by the year 2031.