Embrapa is developing a new resource for wheat, the only commodity amidst the main grain and oilseed chains that Brazil imports: a data platform with strategic information that will inform incentive policies and investment in production growth. The development of the tool is part of a broad research project for the growth of wheat farming in the Cerrado biome, especially in the Brazilian states of São Paulo, Goiás, Minas Gerais, Distrito Federal, Mato Grosso, Mato Grosso do Sul, and Bahia. Nevertheless, it will have data from the entire country, as decision-making on investments in sowing in the Cerrado area involves factors from other regions, such as the presence of processing units and even consumption in other states. The technological solution is expected to be delivered by the end of 2025 both to society and to the Brazilian Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock (Mapa), which requested the work. Leading the initiative, Embrapa Wheat's analyst Alvaro Dossa observes that expanding wheat farming in the Cerrado is a key factor to have Brazil achieve self-sufficiency in the cereal. Therefore, connecting data from such area with data from the rest of the country is essential considering the production chain and the supply of raw materials for the industry. “We cannot simply isolate the Cerrado because decisions are not made in isolation. For example, there is a lot of consumption in the Northeast of Brazil, given its large population,” he says. “It is a national issue, and it is not possible to understand it by analyzing the reality of such region of expansion alone. Just looking into the intensity of milling in the [Cerrado] region is not enough to measure demand. Mills are often located outside this region and exert an influence. A mill located in the north of Paraná can source wheat from Minas Gerais or Mato Grosso do Sul,” adds analyst André Farias, from Embrapa Territorial. Ten years of evolving work The platform is going to display data on production (seeds, inputs, historical evolution) and processing (installed capacity, storage), as well as on domestic consumption and exports. It will also showcase studies that have been carried out in a ten-year-long partnership between Embrapa Wheat, Embrapa Territorial and researchers from the corporation's headquarters. For instance, in 2015, a study projected scenarios for plantation growth in the four Brazilian homogeneous crop-producing regions, and especially analyzed the share of wheat against the area of soybeans and corn in the summer harvest, and the optimization of lands that had historically been occupied by wheat farming. A second study that took place two years later assessed how the cereal expanded or contracted in different areas of the country over a 25-year period. Estimating yield gaps was a third effort to understand differences in wheat production per location, even in regions with consolidated production and similar environmental conditions. All of such analyses are being updated to be included the platform. “It is an evolution of the work, in the sense that it not only pieces together what we have already done, but also because it contains many other indicators; for instance, it has the whole issue of socioeconomics, the whole issue of employment, the issue of consumption, which we had never worked on, and several other indicators. In addition, everything will be available on an interactive platform”, says analyst Rafael Mingoti, from Embrapa Territorial. He believes that this expands use possibilities and the audience that consumes the data. “The platform can feed information about seeds, it can feed information about similar work for other products. It will also inform citizens who work in wheat production, ranging from growers to technical assistance, investors…”, he says. Analyst Adão Acosta, from Embrapa Wheat, draws attention to the gains obtained through the combined efforts of the teams from Embrapa's two research centers, Strategic Superintendency and the Directorate of Research and Innovation. Job Lucio Gomes Vieira, an analyst from the Superintendency, adds: “This study has a nature that integrates two areas, territorial intelligence and strategic intelligence.”