Portal of the Brazilian Agricultural Observatory brings together more than 200 agricultural databases

A single location brings together data from more than 200 mapped bases on the agricultural harvest, climate forecast, rural credit, as well as information on the fishing sector, and georeferenced images of the Brazilian rural area. And the portal of the Brazilian Agricultural Observatory, made available to the public from this Tuesday (25/05) by the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply (Mapa).

“We are delivering this fantastic instrument to society. We have a framework of updated information, consistent data for decision making. This will help Brazil, in this difficult time we are experiencing today, to change its image. There will no longer be a lack of knowledge regarding Brazilian agriculture. Here's what you need to know about Brazil. The sector deserves this platform”, announced minister Tereza Cristina, creator of the Observatory project.

The objective of this service is to strengthen and improve the integration, management, access and monitoring of data and information of strategic interest to the agricultural sector and Brazil. Access to the computerized system is open to the public, with some information available according to access profiles.

Mapa's Secretary of Innovation, Rural Development and Irrigation, Fernando Camargo, explains that the Observatory provides innovative information and communication technology solutions, in order to support decision-making processes of the Ministry and other users in the public, private, and third sector and society.

Mapa's executive secretary, Marcos Montes, also participated in the live; the executive secretary of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovations (MCTI), Sérgio de Almeida; the special secretary for Debureaucratization, Management and Digital Government, Caio Paes de Andrade; secretary of Entrepreneurship and Innovation at MCTI, Paulo Alvim; the president of the Agricultural Parliamentary Front (FPA), federal deputy Sérgio Souza; the president of the CNA, João Martins, and the rector of UFLA, João Chrysóstomo de Resende Júnior.

Available data

The data gathered on the Observatory Portal is available from two main environments. The “Statistical Platform” contains numerical, tabular and graphical data on various agricultural topics. This platform can be consulted using filters by period and stratification at national, state and municipal levels, in addition to quantitative and qualitative data.

The Geospatial format is dedicated to the integration of territorial data and information, which can be viewed and constructed according to users' needs and interpretation. The “Geospatial Platform” is organized by layer visualization environment, quantitative reports and thematic panels that contain any type of attribute and cartographic representation of the data.

In the thematic panels, it is possible to consult the areas of sustainable agriculture and the environment; aquaculture and fishing; rural credit; agricultural products; Agricultural Climate Risk Zoning (Zarc); and Brazilian soils.

To consult information on public rural credit, the user finds data from the Rural Credit Operations System and Proagro, from the Central Bank of Brazil. It is possible to select the quantity and value of contracts for four purposes: funding, investment, commercialization and industrialization using filters that offer visualization by period, resource source, program, subprogram, activity, region of the country, state and municipality.

Information about the main agricultural crops (rice, coffee, beans, corn, soybeans and wheat) can be found according to cultivation, credit, availability and domestic and foreign markets in the “Agricultural Products” panel. 

The spatial soil databases currently available in Brazil can be viewed at a scale of 1:250.000, allowing statistical visualization of the percentage of area occupied in Brazil and in each Federation Unit, according to the Brazilian National Soil Program (PronaSolos ).

Zarc's thematic panel brings together consolidated information on all zoning ordinances for each crop, group, period of the year and type of soil. It also offers integrated tools with the aim of promoting greater usability and intuitiveness in the interpretation of information, centralizing the risk table, the list of cultivars and data visualization maps by municipality, state and region.

A library also brings together publications on different topics and sectors such as reports, newsletters, magazines, plans, bulletins and booklets.

Until July, other topics will be available: technical assistance, land issues, family farming, beef cattle farming and foreign trade.

Technology in favor of agriculture

The implementation of the Observatory is considered a tool for Business intelligence (BI). Thus, it allows the analysis of databases, as well as consolidating essential results for decision-making by rural producers, public managers, businesspeople, and the general public.

According to Mapa's General Coordinator of Strategic Information, Raimundo Deusdará Filho, the Observatory's physical infrastructure has state-of-the-art technological resources as a basis for the construction, access and management of dynamic panels of data and information on Brazilian agriculture. “The Observatory provides for the provision of innovative information and communication technology solutions, allowing the simultaneous availability and visualization of a robust set of updated and consolidated data sources and information, which complement the understanding of the sector's production chains”.

From the launch of the tool, the expectation is that around 1 million consultations will be carried out within a week. The tool supports 500 simultaneous accesses to its databases.

The Observatory's information comes from Mapa and its affiliates such as the National Supply Company (Conab), the National Institute of Colonization and Agrarian Reform (Incra), the National Institute of Meteorology (Inmet), the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa), in addition to the Executive Committee of the Cocoa Farming Plan (Ceplac) and the Brazilian Forest Service (SFB). The database also includes records from the Central Bank of Brazil (Bacen), the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), the National Agency for Technical Assistance and Rural Extension (Anater), the Federal University of Lavras (UFLA) and the Confederation of Agriculture and Livestock of Brazil (CNA).