Soy Moratorium has been renewed and will use a new monitoring tool developed by INPE
 
The GTS Soy Work Group, made up of representatives from the processing industries, exporters and civil society organizations, celebrated today the fourth anniversary of this initiative, with the participation of Minister of the Environment, Izabella Teixeira.  The business sector, NGOs and the Ministry of the Environment announced the renewal of their commitment for another year and presented a report on the third monitoring cycle.
 
A partnership has been signed with INPE, National Land Survey Institute, to use a tool specially developed to detect the presence of agricultural crops in deforested areas through a satellite image classification system.  It is important to note that the use of this new technology allows a significant increase in the area and number of polygons to be monitored.  All polygons with a deforested area of more than 25 hectares (62 acres) were included.
 
Based on the selection of areas with signs of agricultural crops through interpretation of satellite images, the aerial monitoring company, Globalsat, made flyovers of and field visits to the rural properties to confirm the presence of soy planting.
 
The first monitoring cycle, in the 2007/08 crop year, covered a total area of 49,809 (192 square miles).  Flyovers and identification of land use led to the conclusion that there was no soy planting.  In the second monitoring cycle, in the 2008/09 crop year, the monitored area increased to 157,896 hectares (609 square miles), finding soy crops on 1,384 hectares (5 square miles).  In the third year, an area of 302,149 hectares (1,166 square miles) was monitored, finding 6,300 hectares (24 square miles) of soy plantings.
 
The increase in the current crop’s soy acreage reflects the larger monitored area and the following factors:  a)  improved methodology with the inclusion of polygons with an area of 25-100 hectares (62-247 acres) that, in prior years, were just sampled and the inclusion of contiguous polygons with areas of less than 25 hectares (62 acres) that would not have been part of the survey;  b) additional new polygons related to one more monitoring cycle;  c)  greater availability of areas cleared for a longer period of time and now appropriate for planting;  and d)  the favorable scenario in international markets which stimulated a return to the record planted acreage of the 2004/05 crop year.
 
These 6,300 hectares (24 square miles) correspond to 0.25% of the deforestation that occurred in the Amazon Biome located in the states of Mato Grosso, Pará and Rondônia, a total of 2.49 million hectares (9,614 square miles) in the three-year period 2007-2008-2009.  Therefore, the Soy Moratorium is one of the factors inhibiting soy planting in deforested areas.
 
The methodological innovation introduced by INPE brought qualitative gains and made it possible to cover a larger land area.  The third year of monitoring the Soy Moratorium proved highly reliable as regards the results obtained in the identification and mapping of soy acreage.
 
The methodology used, the aerial photographs, satellite images and results of the 2009/10 monitoring cycle are available on our site, www.abiove.com.br.