The Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa)'s president, Maurício Antônio Lopes, launched the Multi-Institutional Platform to Monitor the Reduction of Greenhouse Gas Emissions on March 21, 2016.

Located in Embrapa Environment's facilities, in Jaguariúna, SP, the Platform aims at monitoring the reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in Brazilian agriculture, as well as the country's soil carbon stock dynamics, as a result of the implementation of certified technologies. As it is within the scope of Brazil's Low Carbon Agriculture Plan, or Plano ABC in Portuguese, it is also known as ABC Platform.

The launch of the ABC Platform is directly related to the country's commitment toward a low carbon agriculture, which is a responsible stance in light of climate change and also evidences agriculture's potential to help mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. Most of such gases are not directly related to agricultural production, but they can impact the whole planet.

According to Maurício Lopes, the ABC Platform has a major role to perform with regard to the ABC Plan, as it will help the validation of issues connected to the Plan's conception. "The technologies applied in low carbon agriculture directly involve Embrapa's technical-scientific knowledge, as they are mostly technologies developed and tested by the company which later inform public policy," he asserted.

Lopes explained that the implementation of the Plan creates a critical need in the country, once it requires the generation of a large volume of organized, science-based information to show the world the effectivess of Brazil's low carbon agriculture model. It generates expressive results as it leads to the accumulation of carbon in soils and reduces carbon and GHG emissions.

Production systems
Integrated crop-livestock-forestry systems (ICLFS), no-till farming systems (NTFS), rehabilitation of degraded pasture areas, animal waste treatment, planted forests, and biological nitrogen fixation (BNF) are technologies that can work within sustainable agricultural production systems, generating much less impact on the environment.

For Embrapa's executive director for Research and Development, Ladislau Martin Neto, once such technologies are voluntarily implemented by farmers through incentive policies, they can reinforce the GHG emission monitoring.

The researcher who is technically responsible for the ABC Monitoring Platform, Celso Manzatto, stressed the commitment Embrapa Environment made to offer administrative support for the Platform's operations and the logistics for the physical-chemical, geoprocessing, and other types of analyses it requires, even if they have to be conducted in other Embrapa units or partner research institutions.

Agriculture and low emissions
The low carbon agriculture agenda aims at disproving the assumption that agriculture only generates negative impacts on the environment, through the production techniques prescribed by the ABC Plan.

As the Platform has a multi-institutional nature, it involves a wide range of partners, including the Brazilian Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, and Food Supply; the Ministry of the Environment; the Clima Network - Brazilian Research Network on Global Climate Change; the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation; Universities and others.

"This is the ideal scenario to set out the conditions in which all can work on a joint strategy, through which, via the efficient monitoring of the ABC Plan, we can improve proposed technologies and procedures, combining the intelligent use of our natural resource base with a certified production that can reach the world and access the most demanding markets in the future," Maurício Lopes asserted.

Economic asset
Brazilian public policies to mitigate CO_² emission and thus curb global warming can generate positive impacts on the country's economy.

According to Maurício Lopes, such policies in the course of time will facilitate the generation of a large set of assets through efficient methods that will allow agriculture to become decarbonized.

"It will pave the way for farmers to receive the 'carbon neutral' or 'low carbon' certification in the future, which will strengthen the leadership and protagonism of Brazilian agriculture," Lopes concluded.

Translation
Mariana de Lima Medeiros