Embrapa and Mapa sign an agreement with the Central Bank to guarantee resources for expanding Zarc

The president of Embrapa, Celso Moretti, participated this Wednesday (December 11) in the signing ceremony of the technical cooperation agreement with the Central Bank, which will guarantee resources for the expansion and integration of actions aimed at improving the National Program of Agricultural Zoning for Climate Risk (Zarc). Over the next three years, R$8,17 million will be transferred to Embrapa. The priority for 2020 and 2021 will be the implementation of zoning for crops that have outdated results, including methodological improvements and more current data. Innovations are also planned, such as the new method for defining water storage in soils and zoning based on productivity models.  

In addition, research and development actions are planned to collect data and develop methodologies to subsequently expand zoning to meet new crops such as forestry, pasture and forage, succession cropping systems, crop-livestock integration, agroforestry and new crops with export potential, such as pulse crops (cowpeas, chickpeas, special beans, lentils, dried peas, among others).

According to Moretti, this is another example of what Brazil has done for the sustainable development of agriculture. “This is a program that is 23 years old and has made life possible and easier for Brazilian farmers, who survive from one of the most risky activities in the economy”, he commented, referring to unforeseen events resulting mainly from variability in weather conditions. “For this reason, we are grateful for the sensitivity of the Central Bank in accepting the partnership and contributing resources to Embrapa and the Ministry”. He recalled that only four production chains per year could be updated with the resources previously available.

For the Minister of Agriculture, Tereza Cristina, the union of efforts between Mapa and Embrapa will bring benefits to the producing class. “We are working to ensure that this partnership is increasingly intensified, increasingly closer, and now with the support of the Central Bank, with whom we have been able to dialogue and seek understanding in favor of agriculture,” she said. Referring to the president of Embrapa's Agricultural Climate Risk Zoning Management Committee (Zarc), researcher Eduardo Monteiro, reinforced the importance of the work. “We have to do much more, because this is what will make insurance increasingly cheaper for producers”, he added.

According to the work plan provided for in the technical cooperation agreement between the Ministry of Agriculture, Embrapa and the Central Bank, it is planned to expand the operational capacity for annual execution of Zarc studies, to meet accumulated demands and update zoning existing ones, based on the most recent data and information.

Risk zoning by range or level of productivity is also part of the programming, which can contribute useful information for defining reference prices in calculating coverage under the Agricultural Activity Guarantee Program (Proagro) and insurance for different levels of coverage. , producer profiles and producing regions. And also the characterization and standardization of management or technological level indicators, development of methodologies for the evaluation of resilient production systems, less susceptible to the effects of the climate in different Brazilian regions.

According to the president of the Zarc Management Committee, Eduardo Monteiro, since 2015/2016, when Zarc updates were carried out again, several methodological improvements have been incorporated into the process, delivery of new crop zonings and an intense agenda for communicating results for the productive sector, insurance companies, banks, Mapa and Proagro/Bacen.

“Thanks to this effort, this year, we can highlight relevant achievements for risk management in agriculture, such as the presidential decree on the National Climate Risk Agricultural Zoning Program, which aims to improve the quality and availability of data and information on agroclimatic risks in Brazil, with an emphasis on supporting public management programs and policies”, he comments. Furthermore, he cited the resolution of the National Monetary Committee (CMN), which authorizes the use of Proagro resources to finance zoning actions and the launch of the AGIR Program by MAPA. According to him, these advances were made in collaboration with the Secretariat of Agricultural Policy, which included the topic of Agricultural Risk Management in Brazil as a priority.

Participating in the signing of the document, in addition to the Minister of Agriculture, Tereza Cristina, and the president of Embrapa, Celso Moretti, the deputy head of the Department of Regulation, Supervision and Control of Rural Credit Operations and Proagro of the Central Bank, José Luís Guerra da Silva and the project manager of the Research and Development Support Foundation (Faped), Simone Geralda dos Anjos Souza. The ceremony was also attended by Embrapa's executive board, Unit heads, members of the Management Council, and the head of Embrapa Agricultural Informatics, Silvia Massruhá, Zarc's coordinating unit.

About Zarc

Agricultural Climate Risk Zoning (ZARC) is an instrument of agricultural policy and risk management in agriculture. Zarc allows each municipality to identify the best time to plant crops, in different types of soil and cultivar cycles. The technique is easy to understand and adopt by rural producers, financial agents and other users.

When carrying out ZARC studies, climate, soil and cultivar cycle parameters are analyzed, using a methodology validated by Embrapa and adopted by the Ministry of Agriculture. In this way, the climatic risks involved in the conduct of crops that can cause losses in production are quantified. The result of the study is published through Ordinances of the MAPA Agricultural Policy Secretariat, by crop and Federation Unit, containing the list of municipalities recommended for planting and their respective planting or sowing calendars.

Zarc was first published in the 1996 harvest for wheat. The management of ZARC's agricultural policy is carried out by the Risk Management Department of the Agricultural Policy Secretariat and executed by Embrapa Informática Agropecuária. The ZARC already covers all 27 Federation Units and more than 40 crops/production systems divided between annual and permanent cycle species. To qualify for Proagro, Proagro Mais and the federal subsidy for rural insurance premiums, the producer must comply with the recommendations of this technological package. Furthermore, some financial agents make the granting of credit conditional on compliance with ZARC guidelines.