Published Agricultural Zoning of Climate Risk for second harvest corn

Decrees (19 to 11) were published this Tuesday (341/354), in the Official Gazette of the Union, establishing the Agricultural Zoning of Climate Risk (Zarc), for the 2019/2020 harvest, for the second harvest corn crop. In general, there were no changes compared to the previous harvest.

A priority research action is planned at the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa) on second-crop corn Zarc for next year, which will be validated and published by the end of September 2020.

For the crop that will be planted in the 2019/2020 cycle, no changes will be made to planting dates due to the delay in the soybean harvest in some municipalities. It is worth remembering that in the years 2011 and 2018, changes, on an exceptional basis, in the Zarc planting periods for second-crop corn resulted in greater problems, with insurance and Proagro being activated due to climatic adversities, mainly frosts, throughout the culture development cycle.

Zarc is an instrument for agricultural policy and risk management in agriculture. The study is designed with the aim of minimizing risks related to adverse climatic phenomena and allows each municipality to identify the best time to plant crops, in different types of soil and cultivar cycles. Therefore, planting second-crop corn outside the window recommended in Zarc increases the probability of climatic adversities during the plant's development, resulting in irreversible losses in production.

The system considers elements that directly influence the development of agricultural production such as temperature, rainfall, relative air humidity, occurrence of frost, water available in the soil, water demand of crops and geographic elements (altitude, latitude and longitude).

To qualify for Proagro, Proagro Mais and the federal subsidy for rural insurance premiums, the producer must comply with zoning recommendations. Furthermore, some financial agents are already making the granting of rural credit conditional on compliance with Zarc guidelines.