APPOINTMENTS AREAS OF EXPERTISE

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1 123 Commonwealth Ave Alexandria, VA Tel: (401) EDUCATION 2012 Ph.D., Geography, Michigan State University. Specialization in International Development 2012 MS, Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics, Michigan State University 2001 BA, Political Science, Loyola University in Maryland APPOINTMENTS 2015-Present. Economic Advisor Global Engagement & Strategy Team Bureau of Food Security, US Agency for International Development 2015-Present. Postdoctoral Fellow, Population Studies and Training Center Institute at Brown for Environment and Society Brown University National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow, Population Studies and Training Center Institute at Brown for Environment and Society Brown University Postdoctoral Research Associate Environmental Change Initiative Brown University AREAS OF EXPERTISE Methods and Analytics Spatial Analytics Quantitative and Econometric Modeling GIS Multivariate Analysis Thematic Global Food Systems International Development Agriculture and Sustainability Land Use and Forest Change Urbanization and Resource Use Agriculture and Economic Development Brazil Amazon Latin America SELECTED AWARDS AND HONORS Mellon Foundation Graduate Fellowship for International Study The Benjamin H. Stevens Graduate Fellowship in Regional Science Best Paper, Ph.D. level., Latin American Geography Specialty Group of the AAG Human Dimensions of Global Change Specialty Group Dissertation Research Award Social Science Research Council Dissertation Proposal Development Fellowship Grassroots Development Fellowship, Inter-American Foundation National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship in Interdisciplinary Research in Behavioral and Social Sciences (SPRF-IBSS) Committee for Research and Exploration Grant of the National Geographic Society National Science Foundation Dissertation Development Research Improvement Award. LANGUAGES Portuguese (fluent) Spanish (rusty, but excellent comprehension) COMPUTING ArcGIS Stata R 1

2 PEER-REVIEWED PUBLICATIONS Richards, P., T. Reardon, D. Tschirley, T. Jayne, J. Oehmke & D. Atwood Cities and the future of agriculture and food security: a policy and programmatic roundtable. Food Security, 1-7. Roy, E. D., P. D. Richards, L. A. Martinelli, L. Della Coletta, S. R. M. Lins, F. F. Vazquez, E. Willig, S. A. Spera, L. K. VanWey & S. Porder The phosphorus cost of agricultural intensification in the tropics. Nature plants, 2, Richards, P. D. & L. VanWey Farm-scale distribution of deforestation and remaining forest cover in Mato Grosso. Nature Climate Change, 6, Richards P. & L. VanWey A Second Act in Rural Migration in Western Pará: Rural outmigration and the legacy of Amazon colonization. Journal of Latin American Geography 14 (2) Richards, P What Drives Indirect Land Use Change? How Brazil s agriculture sector influences frontier deforestation. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 105 (5) Richards, P. & L. VanWey Where deforestation leads to urbanization: How resource extraction is leading to urban growth in the Brazilian Amazon. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 105 (4) Richards P., H. Pellegrina, L. VanWey, & S. Spera Soybean Development: export agriculture and high crop returns increases urban economic and population growth in Mato Grosso, Brazil. PLoSone 10(4). Richards, P. Walker, R. & E. Arima Spatially Complex Land Change: The Indirect Effect of Brazil's Agricultural Sector on Land Use in Amazonia. Global Environmental Change (29). VanWey, L. & P. Richards Eco-certification and greening the Brazilian soy and corn supply chains. Environmental Research Letters, 9 (3), Walker, R. & P. Richards The Ghost of von Thünen Lives: A Political Ecology of the Disappearance of the Amazonian Forest. In Political Ecology and Land Change Science: Synergies and Differences, eds. C. Brannstrom & J. Vadjunec. Rutledge. Lead Chapter Richards, P.; Myers, R.J.; Swinton, S. M., & R. T. Walker Exchange rates, soybean supply response, and deforestation in South America. Global Environmental Change 22 (2) Richards, P Food, Fuel, and the Hidden Margins of Capital. Journal of Land Use Science (7) Arima, E.; Richards, P.; Walker, R., & M. Caldas Statistical Confirmation of Indirect Land Use Change in the Brazilian Amazon. Environmental Research Letters (6) Richards, P. Soy, Cotton, and the Final Atlantic Forest Frontier The Professional Geographer 63(3) PUBLICATIONS UNDER REVIEW Richards P. Financing Farming Frontiers. Windfall Profits, and the Expansion of Soybean Production in South America (R&R at World Development) Richards P., Arima, E, L. VanWey, and A. Cohen. Are Brazil s Emissions Reductions Going up in Smoke? (R&R at Conservation Letters) Richards P. How agglomeration economies are shaping Brazil s new agricultural landscapes. (R&R at Journal of Economic Geography) 2

3 PUBLICATIONS IN PROGRESS Richards P., et al. Regulated marginalization: how gold prospecting policies lower entry cost and limit returns to small scale gold production (to be submitted to Land Use Policy) Richards P., et al. Striking it rich or striking out: the economics of artisanal gold mining in the Amazon s Tapajós Basin. EXTERNAL GRANTS Committee for Research and Exploration Grant of the National Geographic Society With Co-PIs J. Campbell, A. Mathis, and M. Klingler. The New Amazonian El Dorado: The Social, Environmental, and Economic Effects of a 21 st Century Gold Rush. Award # $25,260 National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship in Interdisciplinary Research in Behavioral and Social Sciences (SPRF-IBSS). Submitted with Co-PI L. VanWey. A Pfaff and E. Matricardi are also mentors. Brazil's New Green Revolution: Capital, Investment, and Agricultural Expansion Award # /2013-7/2015. $255,000 Mellon Foundation Graduate Fellowship for International Study. Food, Fuel, and the Amazonian Forest: Gauging Indirect Land Use Change from the Farm Level $20,600. *Awarded by the Mellon Foundation to designees of the Fulbright-Hays DDRA program The Benjamin H. Stevens Graduate Fellowship in Regional Science. North American Regional Science Council (NARSC) Food, Fuel, and the Amazonian Forest: Gauging Indirect Land Use Change from the Farm Level $30,000 Grassroots Development Fellowship. Soy, Cattle, and the Hidden Margins of Capital Inter-American Foundation 2011, $21,300. Human Dimensions of Global Change Specialty Group of the AAG Dissertation Research Award. Soy, Cattle, and the Margins of Capital. 2011, $1,000 National Science Foundation Dissertation Development Research Improvement Award. Soy, Cattle, and the Amazon Forest Award # / /2011. $4,800 Social Science Research Council Dissertation Proposal Development Fellowship $5,000 Mechanized Agriculture and Amazonian Deforestation INTERNAL GRANTS 2014 Brown University, Watson Center Brazil Initiative $5, Michigan State Graduate Office Fellowship $1, Michigan State Graduate Office Fellowship $2,100 Michigan State Research Enhancement Award $500 R. Thomas Travel Fellowship $300 Michigan State Research Enhancement Award $ Michigan State Graduate Office Fellowship $2,600 R. Thomas Travel Fellowship $400 Foreign Language Area Studies Fellowship (Summer) $7,000 Michigan State Graduate Office Fellowship $2,300 3

4 2009 Foreign Language Area Studies Fellowship (FLAS) $16,500 + tuition R. Thomas Travel Fellowship $ Foreign Language Area Studies Fellowship (Summer) $7,000 Tinker Grant. $2,800 Michigan State Graduate Office Fellowship $2,000 Foreign Language Area Studies Fellowship (FLAS) $16,500 + tuition 2007 Foreign Language Area Studies Fellowship (FLAS) $16,500 + tuition TEACHING Instructor, ISS310, People and the Environment, Michigan State University Instructor, GEO204,World Regional Geography, Michigan State University Lab Instructor, Class TA, GEO425 Problems in GIScience, Michigan State University Lab Instructor, Class TA, GEO325 Geographic Information Systems, Michigan State University Instructor, ISS310, People and the Environment, Michigan State University 4

5 Forthcoming and Submitted ABSTRACTS OF ACADEMIC PUBLICATIONS Richards P. Trending prices or capital windfalls? What motivates agricultural expansion in Brazil and Argentina? (Submitted) Over the past fifteen years soybean agriculture has expanded across both Brazil and Argentina. This expansion has been broadly credited to a series of supply and demand side changes leading to supposed increases in farm level profits for soybean producers. In this research, however, we argue that recent agricultural expansion in South America could be better framed as responses to periodic shocks in the supply of investment capital, rather than as a long term response to profit margins or rising commodity prices. Specifically, we show that agricultural growth in South America over the past decade is largely uncorrelated with prices or profits for soybean production. However, we also show that there is a clear correlation between sector-wide surplus profits and area responses. This effect, which we suggest is a response to shocks in the supply of investment capital, is particularly strong for Brazil. In our conclusions, we then argue that in developing agricultural regions (a) short term increases in profits can lead to long term changes in production and productivity; and that (b) farm expansions may be more sensitive to increases in access to liquid investment capital than to trends in output prices. We also suggest that future agricultural growth in South America is likely to occur in the coming years, even without a major surge in soybean profitability. Richards P., Arima, E, L. VanWey, and A. Cohen. Are Brazil s Emissions Reductions Going Up in Smoke. (Under Review) In 2008, Brazil began using its satellite-based system for monitoring forest loss (PRODES) to identify and punish landholders and municipalities engaged in illegal deforestation. The move reduced primary forest clearing, but also created incentives to deforest lands and parcels that PRODES does not monitor. This article shows possible evidence of that shift by showing that after 2008 deforestation rates reported by PRODES diverged sharply from deforestation trends estimated by the Global Forest Change database and fire trends measured by the Fire Information for Resource Management Systems. The GFC, deforestation has exceeded 10,000km² per year since 2008, more than double the official, PRODES-based estimates. The GFC estimates are similar to the approximate rates of forest loss in , and suggest that Brazil may have significantly overestimated its post-2008 decline in greenhouse gas emissions and forest loss. These results call into question the utility of the PRODES system to serve as a primary component in both the monitoring and controlling of forest loss, and as the basis for measuring Brazil s reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. With Brazil set to play a pivotal role in determining the ambition of developing nations at the upcoming Paris climate meetings, it s time to develop a next generation forest loss monitoring system equal to the challenge of ending deforestation. Roy, E., Richards,P, Martinelli, L., Della Coletta, L., Machado Lins, S.R., Vazquez, F., Willig, E., VanWey, L., & S. Porder. (Submitted). The phosphorus cost of agricultural intensification in the tropics Agricultural intensification is one way to increase food production and meet global demand in coming decades. While this strategy has the potential to spare landscapes from conversion to agriculture and thus provide environmental benefits, it relies on large material inputs (e.g., fertilizers, fuel, and other chemicals). Here we quantify one such material cost, the amount of phosphorus (P) fertilizer that will be required to intensify agriculture on the 8-12% of global croplands overlying P-fixing soils in These soils are common in the tropics, and can bind added P, rendering it less available to crops. We show that intensification on P-fixing soils will require 1-4 Tg P yr-1 to overcome P fixation, which is equivalent to 7-21% of global P consumption in This sink in the global P cycle is in addition to the P added to 5

6 these soils and harvested in crops, and could double by 2050 to 2-7 Tg P yr-1 as intensification spreads across other P-fixing tropical soils. Our assessment is based on a multi-scale analysis of Brazil, where low yielding agriculture has been replaced by P-input intensive production. We find a significant correlation between the fraction of cropland overlying P-fixing soils in a Brazilian state and the surplus of added fertilizer P that is retained by the soil post-harvest (R2 = 0.84, P<0.001). Our interviews with farmers in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso, which produces 8% of the world's soybeans mostly on P-fixing soils, indicate this surplus is required for at least 38 years of intensive production. Tropical intensification should be coupled with research on how best to reduce this long-term P "tax" imposed by soils, in order to slow the depletion of Earth's finite phosphate rock supplies and move toward more sustainable production practices. Richards P. What drives agricultural change in the developing world? Agglomeration and the new frontiers of global agriculture In this research we argue that agricultural expansion is driven partly by agglomeration economies, or by spatial spillover effects from neighboring farms. We demonstrate this process in the Brazilian State of Mato Grosso, a key frontier in commercial agriculture, and a location where soybean production has expanded dramatically over the last decades. Our results suggest that the probability of agricultural expansion increases when farmland has already encroached into a nearby or neighborhood location. Our results suggest that policy makers seeking to develop commercial agriculture in new regions should support research, infrastructure development, and input distribution in isolated areas; conversely, environmental interests should seek to minimize even limited agricultural growth in the vicinity of ecologically valuable or sensitive regions Richards P. and L. VanWey. (2016) Farm-scale distribution of deforestation and remaining forest cover in Mato Grosso. (Nature Climate Change) Published online 09 November 2015 An analysis of data on property size and type as well as land use reveals the distribution of deforestation, remaining forest cover and carbon stocks in Mato Grosso, Brazil s third largest state. Nearly two-thirds of remaining forests and carbon reserves, equating to between 2 and 3 Pg of carbon, are located on private properties. Around 80% of forests and carbon reserves are on properties larger than 1,000 ha, with smallholder farms and public land reform settlements controlling only a tiny fraction of the state s remaining forest and carbon reserves. Efforts to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation must target owners controlling most of the remaining forest and land types with the highest deforestation rates. We thus suggest that policymakers seeking to protect the remaining forest should focus both incentives and enforcement of anti-deforestation laws in the larger properties where most of these forests are located. Richards P. & L. VanWey. (2015) A Second Act in Amazon Migration: Rural out-migration and the legacy of Amazon colonization in western Pará. Journal of Latin American Geography. In this research we consider rural out-migration from two study sites in western Pará in the Amazon Basin. Here we argue that out-migration is strongly influenced by historical context, and by the legacy institutions associated with each site s period of colonization. We support our argument with longitudinal survey data collected from the rural surroundings of Altamira and Santarém. Our data suggest that rural out-migration is significantly higher from Altamira, the more recently colonized study site. They also indicate that measures of wealth, including access to cattle, property, and housing, artifacts of the institutional periods under which the two study sites were first founded, now exhibit highly divergent influences on migration decisions. We then argue that the varying institutional and historical contexts 6

7 that once shaped in-migration into the eastern Amazon Basin are now reshaping present day outmigration from the region. Richards, P What Drives Indirect Land Use Change? How Brazil s agriculture sector influences frontier deforestation. Annals of the Association of American Geographers. From high returns to soybeans set off an unprecedented expansion of agricultural production across Brazil. The expansion occurred concurrently to a sharp rise in deforestation, leading academics and policy makers to question the extent and means by which the growing agricultural sector was driving regional forest loss. In this article we consider and question the underlying drivers of indirect land use change, namely the potential impact of soybean expansion on beef prices and of land use displacement, via migration. We then present field level results documenting the displacement process in northern Mato Grosso and western Pará States of the Amazon. Our results question the extent to which tropical Amazon deforestation is attributable to land use displacement; however, we argue that the agricultural sector may drive deforestation through other channels, namely through regional land markets. Richards, P. & L. VanWey Where deforestation leads to urbanization: How resource extraction is leading to urban growth in the Brazilian Amazon. Annals of the Association of American Geographers. Developing the Amazon into a major provider of internationally traded mineral and food commodities has dramatically transformed broad expanses of tropical forests to farm and pasturelands, and to mining sites. The environmental impacts of this transformation, as well as the drivers underlying the process, have already been well documented. In this article we turn our analytical lenses to another, less examined effect of Amazon land use and environmental change, namely the creation and development of new urban areas. Here we argue that urban growth in the Amazon is a direct residual of international interest in the production of traded commodities, and of the capacity of local urban residents to capture capital and value before it is extracted from the region. Specifically, we suggest that urban growth is occurring fastest where cities have access to both rural export commodities and export corridors. We also show correlations between urban growth and lower rural population density, and cities capacities to draw migrants from beyond their immediate rural surroundings. More broadly, we argue that urbanization in the Amazon is better interpreted as a symptom rather than a driver of the region s land use and land cover change. Richards P., H. Pellegrina, L. VanWey, & S. Spera Soybean Development: export agriculture and high crop returns increases urban economic and population growth in Mato Grosso, Brazil. PLoSone. In this research we consider how export-driven, soybean agriculture in Mato Grosso has led to broadscale economic growth in the state s non-agricultural economy. Here we argue that the soybean sector has served as a motor to the state s economy by increasing the demand for services, housing, and goods, and by providing a source of investment capital to the non-agricultural sector. Specifically, we show that each square kilometer of soybean production leads to 2.5 new formal sector jobs outside of agriculture, and more than 300,000$Rs of annual, non-agricultural GDP (equivalent to approximately 150, ,000$US in 2010). We also estimate that over the past decade, in Mato Grosso soybean production accounted for more than forty-five percent of the increase in the state s formal, non-agricultural GDP, and approximately sixty percent of the increase in the state s non-agricultural employment, urban population and nighttime light emissions. However, we also show that gains were closely tied to soybean profitability, which varies from year to year. Consequently, we argue that policy makers should recognize that (1) export agriculture poses a viable channel for regional economic development, but that (2) such a development strategy will remain closely tied to demand derived from external markets

8 Richards, P. Walker, R. & E. Arima Spatially Complex Land Change: The Indirect Effect of Brazil's Agricultural Sector on Land Use in Amazonia. Global Environmental Change (29). Soybean farming has brought economic development to parts of South America, as well as environmental hopes and concerns. A substantial hope resides in the decoupling of Brazil's agricultural sector from deforestation in the Amazon region, in which case expansive agriculture need not imply forest degradation. However, concerns have also been voiced about the potential indirect effects of agriculture. This article addresses these indirect effects for the case of the Brazilian Amazon since Our work finds that as much as thirty-two percent of deforestation, or the loss of more than 30,000 km2 of Amazon forest, is attributable, indirectly, to Brazil's soybean sector. However, we also observe that the magnitude of the indirect impact of the agriculture sector on forest loss in the Amazon has declined markedly since We also find a shift in the underlying causes of indirect land use change in the Amazon, and suggest that land appreciation in agricultural regions has supplanted farm expansions as a source of indirect land use change. Our results are broadly congruent with recent work recognizing the success of policy changes in mitigating the impact of soybean expansion on forest loss in the Amazon. However, they also caution that the soybean sector may continue to incentivize land clearings through its impact on regional land markets. VanWey, L. & P. Richards Eco-certification and greening the Brazilian soy and corn supply chains. Environmental Research Letters, 9 (3), Garrett et al's recent letter (2013 Environ. Res. Lett ) shows the trade value of Brazil's production of non-genetically modified (GM) crops, and argues that production for this niche market laid the foundation for the expansion of a variety of non-gm and eco-certification systems. We argue that the conditions underlying the development and perpetuation of the non-gm certification systems are transient. The expansion of soy production has dampened the conditions that promoted the dominance of non-gm soy in the region. The state at the heart of the production of conventional soy, Mato Grosso, already has transitioned to almost 90% GM soy in the most recent agricultural season. The continued viability of eco-certification systems depends on strengthening institutions on the demand side, and ensuring farm-level costs on the supply side match price premiums reaching the farm level Richards, P.; Myers, R.J.; Swinton, S. M., & R. T. Walker Exchange rates, soybean supply response, and deforestation in South America. Global Environmental Change 22 (2) The advancement of South America's agro-pastoral frontier has been widely linked to losses in biodiversity and tropical forests, with particular impacts on the Brazilian cerrado, the Atlantic Forest, and the Amazon. Here we consider an important, yet largely overlooked, driver of South America's soybean expansion, namely the devaluation of local currencies against the US dollar in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Much interest has emerged in recent years over the environmental implications of soybean production in Brazil, with evidence of both direct incursions into moist tropical forest by soybean producers and of potential indirect effects, via the displacement of existing ranching operations. In this research we utilize historical trends in soybean prices, exchange rates, and cropland dedicated to soybean production in Bolivia, Paraguay, and Brazil to estimate the impact of currency devaluations on area of production. The results suggest that approximately 80,000 km², or 31% of the current extent of soybean production in these countries, emerged as a supply area response to the devaluation of local currencies in the late 1990s. The results also indicate that the more recent depreciation of the dollar and appreciation of the Brazilian real have counteracted a recent rise in global soybean prices, in the process sparing an estimated nearly 90,000 km² from new cropland, 40,000 km 2 of this in the Amazon alone. Amidst an increasingly open economic environment, where barriers to trade are jettisoned in favor of the free flow 8

9 of commodities, relative currency values will occupy an important role in the future sourcing of both agricultural expansion and environmental degradation. Richards, P Food, Fuel, and the Hidden Margins of Capital. Journal of Land Use Science (7) Changing demands for food and biofuel have reshaped global agricultural outlooks and pushed production in areas long considered too marginal for the widespread production of agricultural commodities. Perhaps no region has drawn more attention to the environmental impacts of expanding agricultural production than the Amazon. Considerations of indirect land use change have brought a new dimension to discussions related to the impacts of agriculture on the region's forest cover. In this article, I provide a location-based conceptualization of indirect land use change that brings to light the intraregional movement of capital and skills between the cattle and agriculture sectors. The article suggests that amid rapid increases in rents for soy production and land prices, ranchers face strong incentives to relocate their operations to forest regions Arima, E.; Richards, P.; Walker, R., & M. Caldas Statistical Confirmation of Indirect Land Use Change in the Brazilian Amazon. Environmental Research Letters (6) Expansion of global demand for soy products and biofuel poses threats to food security and the environment. One environmental impact that has raised serious concerns is loss of Amazonian forest through indirect land use change (ILUC), whereby mechanized agriculture encroaches on existing pastures, displacing them to the frontier. This phenomenon has been hypothesized by many researchers and projected on the basis of simulation for the Amazonian forests of Brazil. It has not yet been measured statistically, owing to conceptual difficulties in linking distal land cover drivers to the point of impact. The present article overcomes this impasse with a spatial regression model capable of linking the expansion of mechanized agriculture in settled agricultural areas to pasture conversions on distant, forest frontiers. In an application for a recent period ( ), the model demonstrates that ILUC is significant and of considerable magnitude. Specifically, a 10% reduction of soy in old pasture areas would have decreased deforestation by as much as 40% in heavily forested counties of the Brazilian Amazon. Evidently, the voluntary moratorium on primary forest conversions by Brazilian soy farmers has failed to stop the deforestation effects of expanding soy production. Thus, environmental policy in Brazil must pay attention to ILUC, which can complicate efforts to achieve its REDD targets. Richards, P. Soy, Cotton, and the Final Atlantic Forest Frontier The Professional Geographer 63(3) From 1945 to 2000, the extent of Paraguay's Atlantic Forest was reduced from 73,000 to 12,000 square kilometers. Deforestation rates were exceptionally high from the late 1960s through to the end of the century. During this period, dual agricultural frontiers pushed into the region from both east and west, resulting in a production landscape defined by two principal commodities: soybeans and cotton. This article considers the expansion and contraction of these industries and addresses their impacts on the region's forest cover. Findings suggest that the role of cotton and smallholder agriculture has been greatly diminished as a driver of land cover change in the region since High rates of forest loss were sustained, however, partly as a result of continued pressure for agricultural expansion for soy production. 9