The Minister of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply, Blairo Maggi, will present data from NASA, a special US agency in Berlin, Germany, showing that Brazil uses only 7.6% of its territory with crops, totaling 63,994,479 hectares.

The Minister was invited to address the opening of the panel "Shaping the Future of Livestock in a Sustainable, Responsible and Productive Way" at the Global Forum for Food and Agriculture (GFFA) to be held during the International Green Week in the January 18 to 20.

By 2016, Embrapa Territorial had already estimated the occupation with agricultural production in 7.8% (65,913,738 hectares). NASA's numbers date from November 2017, indicating a smaller percentage, but according to Embrapa Territorial's chief general, Evaristo Miranda, a doctor of ecology, the small difference of 0.2% between Brazilian and US data is normal.

NASA and Embrapa numbers will be used by Minister Blairo Maggi to counter the recurring criticism of the international community that "Brazilian farmers are deforesting."

The NASA study shows that Brazil protects and preserves native vegetation in more than 66% of its territory and grows only 7.6% of the land. Denmark grows 76.8%, ten times more than Brazil; Ireland, 74.7%; the Netherlands, 66.2%; the United Kingdom 63.9%; Germany 56.9%.

Evaristo Miranda explains that the joint work of NASA and the US Geological Survey (USGS) has made a wide survey with the mapping and calculation of the planet's cultivated areas based on satellite monitoring. For two decades, the Earth has been searched in detail for high-definition images by researchers at Global Food Security Analysis, which proved the data anticipated by Embrapa.

The cultivated areas vary from 0.01 hectare per inhabitant - in countries like Saudi Arabia, Peru, Japan, South Korea and Mauritania - to more than 3 hectares per inhabitant in Canada, the Iberian Peninsula, Russia and Australia. Brazil has a small cultivated area of ​​0.3 hectare per inhabitant, and is in the range of 0.26 to 0.50 hectare per inhabitant, as is the case of South Africa, Finland, Mongolia, Iran, Sweden, Chile, Laos, Niger, Chad and Mexico.

The NASA survey also provides subsidies on food security on the planet, measuring the extent of crops, irrigated and rainfed areas, intensification of land use with two, three crops and even areas of continuous cultivation. These calculations do not include areas of plantation forestry and reforestation, which are the lands dedicated to the planting of eucalyptus. In Brazil only crops were counted.

According to the study, the area of ​​land occupied by crops is 1.87 billion hectares. The world population reached 7.6 billion last October, with the result that each hectare, on average, would feed 4 people. In fact, productivity per hectare varies greatly, as does the type and quality of crops.

"Europeans have deforested and intensively exploited their territory. Europe, without Russia, held more than 7% of the planet's original forests. Today it has only 0.1%. The sum of the cultivated area of ​​France (31,795,512 hectares) with that of Spain (31,786,945 hectares) is equivalent to that cultivated in Brazil (63,994,709 hectares), "explains Embrapa specialist.

Most countries use between 20% and 30% of the land with agriculture. Those in the European Union use between 45% and 65%. The United States, 18.3%; China, 17.7%; and India, 60.5%.

"Brazilian farmers grow only 7.6%, with a lot of technology and professionalism," says Evaristo Miranda.

The largest cultivated areas are in India (179.8 million hectares), the United States (167.8 million hectares), China (165.2 million hectares) and Russia (155.8 million hectares). Only these four countries account for 36% of the world's cultivated area. Brazil occupies the 5th. followed by Canada, Argentina, Indonesia, Australia and Mexico.