With 66% of its territory preserved, Brazil has in the balance between production and preservation a great asset in the international commodity market, including soybeans. The finding was made by Gustavo Spadotti, chief general of Embrapa Territorial, in the lecture "Sustainability of soybean production in Mercosur: facts and rumors", given on Wednesday during the IX Brazilian Congress of Soybeans and Mercosoja2, in Foz do Iguaçu (PR).

According to data presented and based on car records, the areas preserved by producers, conservation units, indigenous lands and parks total 66% of the national territory. Agricultural production, in turn, is done in 30% of the territory, 21% with pastures, 8% with agriculture and 1.2% with planted forests.

"See that our balance of producing and preserving is well balanced. But there is a huge challenge in managing these preserved areas. How to manage so that they remain preserved, but that they can also participate in the capitalization processes of the Brazilian rural producer? That is, how it will be paid for this ecosystem benefit provided to the entire planetary society", says Spadotti.

According to the speaker, there are different ways to make this payment for environmental services, but what he believes is more feasible is the payment by the market. For this to happen it is necessary to show through concrete numbers and official public data and open the area intended for preservation.

"I believe that this is the faithful of the balance in foreign trade. Showing that if the importer wants a soy with a sustainability footprint he will not find it in the United States and any competitor. He'll find it here in Brazil. Because every hectare of soybeans and every bag of soybeans produced in our territory has a very strong environmental footprint," said Gustavo Spadotti.

The sustainability of Brazilian soybeans also involves competitiveness inside and outside the port. For this, the speaker stressed the need to increase productivity with better use of available technologies. According to him, it is necessary to reduce the distance between the productivity of the most efficient producers and those that still obtain slower efficiency. This would contribute to an overall productivity gain and increased production.

This increase in production brings to light bottlenecks that Brazil needs to face to reduce costs outside the port, such as storage and transportation.

"We have to eliminate the Brazil cost, especially the logistics costs of draining our crop. This is so that it arrives first in our internal market at competitive prices in order to mitigate the problems of national inflation. But also reach all ports in the world at competitive prices," he said.

Moderator of the conference, Paula Tagliani, of the Planning and Logistics Company (EPL), recalled that the National Logistics Plan was recently launched, which seeks to identify the opportunities and needs in the brazilian transportation logisitica. "These are simulations that lead us to the 2035 scenario and indicate what we need to implement in transport infrastructure to meet the demand for cargo and passenger transport," he explains.

According to her, this plan foresees an increase in 61% of the extension of the railway network, in 93% of the flow capacity by highways, an increase of 53% in the number of airports operating regular flights and ports processing 42% to 104% more loads, and in the North arc this percentage is 73% to 125%.

Still considering the theme of the sustainability of Brazilian production, Paula said that one of the focuses of the National Logistics Plan is the reduction of the carbon footprint in transportation, either by replacing by means that emit less greenhouse gases, by improving the efficiency of transportation systems or also by compensating through tree planting.

CB Soja and Mercosoja

The IX Brazilian Congress of Soybeans and Mercosoja are being held from May 16 to 19 at the Rafain Palace Hotel & Convention Center, in Foz do Iguaçu (PR). The events are promoted by Embrapa Soja and have as their theme "The challenges for sustainable production in Mercosur".

The program has six conferences and 18 panels, totaling 50 lectures. 287 technical papers are also being presented in poster format or orally.

The event also has the Soy Innovation Arena, where participants in the Brazilian innovation ecosystem can integrate, and an exhibitors' fair, in which 35 companies present the latest technologies developed for the soybean production chain.

Source: Embrapa