CONAB, Brazil's National Supply Company, is the government agency responsible for providing information on the country's agricultural harvest. Their information is used by market analysts around the world and is included in the monthly report of the Agricultural Market Information System (AMIS) via the Group on Earth Observations Global Agricultural Monitoring Initiative’s (GEOGLAM’s) Crop Monitor for AMIS.
CONAB seeks training so that its technical staff can update the new methodologies and technologies that can be implemented in its work.
Through the Agriculture Monitoring in the Americas (AMA) group and NASA Harvest, CONAB participated in three training workshops in 2018 that have improved the usage of Earth observations in the Brazilian national crop assessment.
In March 2018, NASA Harvest and the University of Maryland Global Land Analysis & Discovery (GLAD) group hosted a workshop at the university on national-scale cropland and crop type mapping. Technicians from CONAB together with those from INIA (Chile), SIAP (Mexico), and MinAgri (Argentina) participated in the training. The week concluded with initial discussions that led to the successful launch of the AMA group.
Since then, CONAB has been testing the methodology to classify croplands in Brazil. The first test of the methodology was the mapping of rice in the state of Paraná. The result obtained was not satisfactory and adaptation needs were identified. A second test was carried out to estimate the area of Maíz 2a Safra (2017/18) in the Federal District. The map was used as the basis for the stratification of the first crop since the area cultivated in the region is the same for the two crops (changing only the types of crops). Therefore, the possibility of estimating the area of the first and second crops using only mapping as a basis was also studied. Fieldwork was done to validate estimates. Once the work was finished, the result was announced and was well-received by the agricultural sector of the region.
Consequently, CONAB adopted the result (35,800 hectares) as official data for the area of the second corn crop in the Federal District. CONAB now wishes to implement the area estimation methodology in other states and with other crops.
In addition to these two trainings, CONAB also participated in a December 2018 workshop on the applications of SAR technology for agricultural monitoring. Hosted at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, the workshop was organized by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and funded by the IICA Scholarship and Research Assistance Program 2018 Canada for agriculture in the Americas. With the qualification and exchange of experiences of its technical staff with specialists in agricultural monitoring in the world, CONAB reaffirms its search to always improve the quality of its information.
Since 2020, CONAB and the Brazilian National Institute for Space Research (INPE) have been working together to apply remote sensing and statistical methods to identify and estimate soybean crop areas in Brazil’s main producing regions. Up to now, the project successfully mapped soybean-planted areas in Mato Grosso, Mato Grosso do Sul, Goiás, Bahia, Maranhão, Piauí, and Tocantins states, and currently the strategy is focusing on the South Region (Paraná, Santa Catarina, and Rio Grande do Sul states). The crop mapping methodology is an adaptation of the one shared in the 2018 GLAD Workshop, structured by INPE researcher and former GLAD visiting scientist Marcos Adami, in cooperation with the CONAB work team.
The result of this effort is available for download on the CONAB website: https://portaldeinformacoes.conab.gov.br/mapeamentos-agricolas-downloads.html