New Brazil Data Brings Greater Precision to Gro

Gro Intelligence has bolstered its Brazilian data offerings with the integration of municipal-level crop data from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), the country’s principal statistics agency.

The new IBGE source comes on top of Gro’s other Brazil offerings, including CONAB, CEPEA, and UNICA, covering state-level production, stock, and price data. Gro also has extensive USDA PS&D international data covering the Brazilian market.

The first IBGE dataset Gro has added includes a diverse group of 33 crops ranging from well-documented products such as corn, soybeans, and sugar to smaller crops like pineapples, garlic, and jute fiber. The data includes planted and harvested area, yield, and production for Brazil’s 5,563 municipalities. Economic data in the form of value of production for each crop in each municipality is also available. The data begins in 1974 and currently runs to 2017.

The IBGE data can serve many important roles in analyzing the Brazilian market. The new dataset’s planted area and production data can be used to create crop masks that can be coupled with Gro’s climate data to determine the impact of weather on key producing areas. (See chart below.)

The display above can be used to monitor the sugarcane crop in Brazil’s São Paulo state. On the left, IBGE municipal-level production statistics for 2017 let Gro users see where sugarcane production is concentrated within the state. This can be combined with other Gro data, such as NDVI, shown on the right, to monitor the state’s sugarcane crop. Recoverable sucrose concentrations in cane have been shown to be inversely correlated with NDVI, as described in this Gro Insight. Click on the image to go to an interactive display on the Gro Intelligence web app.

In addition, IBGE’s historical yields, presented with such granularity as the municipal level, can be used to create robust crop models. And the depth of the dataset back to 1974 allows Gro users to analyze long-term trends, such as the expansion of area devoted to soybean farming as it coincided with a sharp increase in soybean demand from China. (See chart below.)

The display above shows the dramatic northward expansion of Brazil’s soybean acreage over the time period covered by the IBGE dataset. In 1974, shown on the left, only 50 hectares of soybeans were harvested in the now dominant-producing state of Mato Grosso. In 2017, IBGE data shows 9.3 million hectares of soybeans were harvested in the state. Click on the image to go to an interactive display on the Gro Intelligence web app.

The IBGE statistics agency has a broad mandate to document social, economic, and agricultural information for the country. Gro has integrated IBGE’s so-called Table 1612, which catalogs data on temporary crops that are planted and harvested annually. As the world’s largest exporter of soybeans and sugar and the second-largest exporter of corn, the success of Brazil’s crops affects supplies and prices across the globe.

Gro will soon be adding to its platform IBGE’s Table 1613, which catalogs data, also at the municipal level, for permanent crops such as cocoa, rubber, and coffee, of which Brazil is the world’s largest producer.