Research demonstrates the portrait of Brazilian digital agriculture

Use of digital tools for commercialization, interest in digital solutions, bottlenecks in connectivity infrastructure and lack of knowledge about available technologies are some topics extracted from the research conducted with more than 750 participants among rural producers, companies and service providers on trends, challenges and opportunities for digital agriculture in Brazil.
The work was done through a partnership between Embrapa, the Brazilian Support Service for Micro and Small Enterprises (Sebrae) and the National Institute of Space Research (Inpe) and revealed that 84% of Brazilian farmers already use at least one digital technology as a support tool in agricultural production.
The results show that the ease of communication and access to information, provided by the Internet, are the gateway today to introduce the farmer in these new technologies. But more specialized applications, capable of expanding access to markets, reducing costs or even adding value to production are already on the radar of rural producers, with potential for expansion.
Through interactive dashboards, you can analyze all search results in a stratified way. The consultations can be made from the information about the profile of the farmer and the service provider, such as size of the cultivated area and time in the activity, for each unit of the federation.
The full data is also available for consultation in the executive summary. The study was carried out within the framework of the cooperation project "Strategic intelligence for small rural businesses: adding value and technology", coordinated by embrapa's Secretariat of Innovation and Business (SIN) and signed in partnership with Sebrae.
Its goal is to help guide new research and innovations in addition to supporting market strategies.
More than 70% of farmers who responded to the survey said they access the internet for general interests on agriculture. Social networks, such as Facebook, and messaging services, such as WhatsApp, were pointed out by 57.5% of them as means used to obtain or disseminate information related to property, buy inputs or sell their production.
About 40% of producers said they have been using these new technologies as a channel for the purchase and sale of inputs and production, and around a third of them use digital solutions in order to map crops and vegetation and to predict climate risks.
"Other applications of technologies appear in smaller numbers, but we see as areas with a tendency to grow those focused on animal welfare, cited by 21.2% of respondents; and for food certification or traceability, mentioned by 13.7% of them", adds Bolfe. He also points out that 95% of the producers registered in the survey that they want more information about digital agriculture.
If producers are eager for digital technologies, some barriers still discourage their adoption. The results of the research indicate that the value of the investment for the acquisition of equipment and applications frightens the farmer. This aspect is pointed out by 67.1% of them as one of the difficulties. The issue arises ahead of structural problems, such as the quality of connection in the rural area.
The lack of knowledge about which technologies are most appropriate was mentioned as a difficulty by almost 41% of rural producers. "There are many tools that the farmer does not understand or does not understand what they are for," says Sebrae Agribusiness Competitiveness analyst Victor Ferreira.
One of the strategies that will be developed from the study is the creation of content to improve information for the farmer about the available digital solutions. The information is on the portal and other access channels, such as the DataSebrae intelligence support platform.
According to the survey, 40.5% of farmers use digital technologies for buying and selling activities. According to the Sebrae analyst, producers are discovering new ways to communicate their product, through digital social media and marketplace platforms, and this has made them position themselves differently, whether in the business, in the family itself or with customers. This demand for tools for commercialization of production accelerated even more with the pandemic of the new coronavirus and measures of social distancing.
Factors related to investment by farmers to have access to technologies, lack of training of users and difficulties with labor were some of the limitations pointed out to expand the sector. One of the proposed strategies to improve the connection with the needs of the farmer is through a consulting program in innovation and technology, Sebraetec.
However, the deficiency in connectivity infrastructure in rural areas is still the main obstacle today for the development of digital agriculture, mentioned by 61.4% of professionals in the area who responded to the survey. At the moment, only large producers are able to invest in solutions to improve internet access to properties.
"When it comes to expanding scanning in the field, the main barrier is still connectivity. The extensive territorial dimension of Brazil, the lack of infrastructure in rural areas and high investment, a factor that makes it mainly impossible for small and medium-sized producers to have access to the Internet, still remain the main impediments to this expansion," says Sergio Rocha, founder and CEO of Agrotools, agtech, which provides digital solutions based on geographic platform.
According to him, encouraging connectivity in the field is essential to ensure increased productivity. "The development of new technologies must not stop. They are the ones that prove that it is worth investing in connectivity in the field, because, with it, the accessibility of the producer to productivity solutions, intelligence, management will increase a lot, since they bring many benefits", he predicts.
Farmers and service providers who participated in the survey placed solutions to improve property planning and management at the top of the wish list, which should come primarily through applications and web platforms.
They are solutions with the potential to cause great impact on production systems, in terms of increased productivity, efficiency and cost reduction, production quality, reduction of environmental impact and market access.
"It's the new agriculture. There is a projection for 2030 indicating that there will be an intense revolution in the field and it has already begun", comments Francisco Severino, corporate technical manager of the Cooperative of Sugarcane Planters of the State of São Paulo (Coplacana).
The Cooperative entered into a partnership with Embrapa at the end of 2019 to innovate the work model, improving productivity and, consequently, producers' income, with the use of blockchain technology and remote sensing solutions.