There is a great deal of discussion these days about bringing more technology into farming, and about how it can improve production, reduce costs, and even make agriculture more sustainable. What is discussed far less is how difficult this can be, and how it has to be judged case by case, so that a producer does not invest in technologies that cannot realistically be applied to their own situation.
In such a connected world, why do some producers adopt innovations while others do not? Why do some people take to new ideas so readily while others hold back? The answers come down to several factors, including the producer's socioeconomic conditions, their particular reality, the type of production, the cost of putting a technology in place and maintaining it, the characteristics of the technology itself, the region, and the level of technical knowledge, among others.
Agricultural production and sustainability in Brazil
When we look at the reality of Brazil, a country of continental proportions whose territory is larger than the whole of Europe, this challenge becomes even clearer. Practices or working methods that suit the European continent would rarely transfer well to North America, just as North American practices would rarely work well in South America. Time matters too, since a technology or practice seen as positive in one region today may be considered damaging somewhere else, or even everywhere, in the future. Back in 1987, Romeiro reached a similar conclusion, observing that the difference between nineteenth-century American agriculture and the European agriculture of his day lay in the absence of a conservationist outlook among Americans, which made it easy to develop a speculative commercial agriculture for which conserving the land seemed an unthinkable cost, while the European farmer already saw the need to preserve the fertility of the soil.
Brazil's largest crops show how varied the picture is. Soybean production exceeds 150 million tonnes a year, sugarcane harvests pass 750 million tonnes, maize frequently surpasses 115 million tonnes, coffee runs at around 4 million tonnes (roughly 67 million 60 kg bags), oranges exceed 15 million tonnes, and cotton passes 3.5 million tonnes. Each of these crops calls for a different approach, different terrain, different care, and different technologies. Coffee, for instance, is generally grown in mountainous, sloping areas where machinery is hard to use, so drone technologies and contour planting are valuable. Soybean and cotton, by contrast, are mostly grown on extensive flat areas where machinery moves easily, and the technology that fits there is of a different kind.
According to Embrapa, the major Brazilian public body focused on research, development, innovation, and sustainability, a package of technologies applied to coffee allowed Brazil to triple its production volume while cutting the cultivated area by 20%. These included coffee genome sequencing, the study of more productive cultivars, hedgerow planting systems that allow higher plant populations, proper nutrition, irrigation management and water-stress control, intelligent pruning systems, integrated pest management, micropropagation, clonal gardens, and the use of brachiaria as a cover crop between the rows.
Other technologies gaining ground in coffee include drones for soil studies and chemical application, which lowers total operating costs and reduces losses from plants being crushed underfoot, alongside biological crop-protection products, pest and disease monitoring apps, and remote sensing.
In Brazil's flatter regions, a growing number of producers are using intelligent machinery to optimise resources, save on production, and manage their land more sustainably. Producers who invest in frequent soil analyses and use modern machinery can apply products in a targeted way, so that each area receives a variable rate according to its needs, which sharply reduces input use. Modern machinery already carries telemetry and can report which activity was carried out, whether planting, fertilising, crop protection, or harvesting, along with the date, the dose, the product used, the fuel consumed in the operation, and the speed of the machine. All of this data gives managers the information to apply products ever more effectively, and even to anticipate problems. Studies that combine remote sensing with climate information make it possible to identify droughts, intense rainfall, excessive heat or cold, areas with fertility problems, and bare soil.
Practical examples of agricultural technology in action
Remote sensing might identify an area of a field that shows lower vegetative vigour at the peak of the crop over several years. The first step is an on-site technical visit to see whether anything is visible to the naked eye and to check whether the soil there is sandier than the rest, for example. The next step is a soil analysis of the different areas for comparison. Often, in a patch with lower vigour, sustainable solutions such as castor cake or chicken litter are enough to correct the problem.
Areas used solely for pasture, or pasture intercropped with a crop such as maize, may have sectors with lower production, sometimes because of trampling by cattle. Here, remote sensing can identify patches of bare or struggling soil, and the ideal is to compare different years and different times of year, such as the rainy and dry seasons. That comparison matters, because analyses done only in the dry season will naturally show lower vigour. In this way the producer can work out how to improve soil health, and with it the pasture that feeds the herd, since cattle can lose weight when the quality of the pasture in an area declines.
The challenges
As noted earlier, the use of technology varies a great deal with the size of the producer and the property. Pest and disease monitoring apps, modern weather stations with alerts and forecasts, drones, and remote sensing can be very expensive for small producers. Equally, using biological inputs without first studying and analysing the level of pest and disease infestation can cause serious losses, even for large producers.
Brazil, as already mentioned, is a country of continental proportions, and many properties in the Brazilian Cerrado lie a long way from urban centres, which makes it harder to bring in technology and install improvements, on top of the travel time, the difficulty of getting a connection, and the cost of setting things up.
American and European companies looking to grow in the Brazilian market run into the major challenge of adapting their solutions to tropical conditions. The great majority of these solutions do not address the real problems Brazilian producers face, nor do they fit the local reality, because Brazil has many different soil types, climates, and other regional particularities.
References
CNA Brasil. Publications.
Filho, H. M. de S., Buainain, A. M., Silveira, J. M. F. J. da, and Vinholis, M. de M. B. (2011). Condicionantes da adoção de inovações tecnológicas na agricultura. Cadernos de Ciência & Tecnologia, 28(1), 223–255.
Guerra, A. F., Santos, J. de F., Ferreira, L. T., and Rocha, O. C. (2021). In Telhado, S. F. P. e, and Capdeville, G. de (Eds.), Cafés do Brasil: pesquisa, sustentabilidade e inovação. Tecnologias poupa-terra 2021. Brasília, DF: Embrapa.
Romeiro, A. R. (1987). Ciência e tecnologia na agricultura: algumas lições da história. Cadernos de Ciência & Tecnologia, 4(1), 59–95.