PronaSolos Platform allow access to all who produce soil data in Brazil

The Brazilian Government launched the National Soil Program (PronaSolos) in 2020 to investigate and consolidate in-depth knowledge on the country’s soils. At the moment, there are only general soil surveys available; less than 5% of the nation mapped at a scale of 1:100,000 or up.

This detailed and thorough knowledge of soils will enable Brazilian agriculture to become increasingly competitive, as well as supporting public policy formulation on soil conservation, ecosystem preservation, food security, and sustainable use of natural resources.

The Program will also allow planning for urban expansion, by indicating more suitable places for cultivation, limitations on the construction of houses, buildings, roads, implantation of sanitary landfills, leisure and sports areas, electricity transmission networks and others.

The mapping will lead to the mitigation of risks and disasters. Proper crop management, as well as soil conservation practices, can reduce or even eliminate soil erosion, rainwater loss, river sedimentation and floods, among other problems related to the mishandling of soils.

Land use planning in rural areas will show the zones with greatest potential for agrosilvopastoral production or expansion for each crop. Also, a better assessment of land prices will favor purchases, sales and support access to lower risk agricultural credit.

For the next 30 years, PronaSolos will involve dozens of partner institutions on the project. Training will be provided to the regionally distributed teams. The total investment in the Program is estimated to amount to R$ 4 billion.

The Program is expected to investigate, document, make an inventory of and interpret soil data, with the further objective of mapping 1,3 million km² of Brazil’s soils in the first ten years, and another 6.9 million km² by 2048, at scales ranging from 1:25,000 to 1:100,000.