By Andrea Hargraves 
The Chairman of the Committee on Science, Technology, Innovation and Higher Education, Representative Fabio Oliveira (Podemos), convened the collective meeting this Tuesday (13) to address communication in this area, bearing in mind the importance of technology for agribusiness and modern producers.
According to the Ministry of Agriculture, only 27% of rural properties are actually connected. IBGE data (from 2021) shows that 72% of the country’s rural properties (3.6 million) are still offline, i.e. without any internet connection.
“We have listened to the productive sector in Paraná and it is clear that our state, as one of the breadbaskets of the country in terms of agricultural production, we understand that when we see the potential of the equipment that is in this area today and what it does not do we need to solve it and this is called contact in the field Fabio Oliveira said.
“The producer is already paying for equipment that is not fully used due to a lack of communication. So, what we want by inviting the secretary to come here for the meeting of the Commission on Science, Technology, Innovation and Higher Education is to understand what we, the lawmakers, can do.” Oliveira concluded by concluding what is The kind of laws we need to think about here within this House of Laws so that the farmer can effectively use the equipment that he has already invested in, and that represents cost reduction, productivity increase and the benefits of the entire population.”
Minister Norberto Ortegara explained that “it is not about looking for super-connectivity via the Starlink satellite type, which is expensive and which the farmer cannot afford, but a structure consisting of about 750 towers of additional 4G radio stations with a capacity of 700 MHz, which will already serve the 399 municipalities of Paraná ” .
“The challenge for agriculture today is to do more and better with fewer resources, to improve the delicate processes in agriculture. Treat every square meter, every plant ‘on its own’ and not ‘run the whistle’ as they say, which treats large areas equally, as things This presupposes massive use of things already embedded in machines, for example, or more digital processes reaching rural areas,” he explained.
“This is why we have focused on communication capacity. We pay dearly for technologies that are not used due to the lack of telemetry, the ability of machines to talk to a human being, because we lack important investments in communication capacity. Therefore, communication is a very important tool for good performance, qualification resource-saving, sustainable, and efficient operations in rural areas,” Ortegara describes.
credits
The minister informed that the state government is ready to release ICMS credits arising from exports so that there is an acceleration in this investment process. For this purpose and for renewable energies, the government is willing to release cash resources as long as there are investments in this direction. Another model, also under construction by the state government, is access at least with fiber optics at the end, in the village, in the district and from there every farmer, even financed by rural credit, can pull a cable or radio so that he can have a minimum signal sufficient to carry out its activities in the field. The Minister of State for Agriculture and Supply concluded that the challenge lies in increasing the accuracy of precision agriculture.
Also participating in the meeting were MP Ana Julia (PT) and MPs Samuel Dantas (Solidariedade), Ricardo Arruda (PL) and Pedro Paulo Bazzana (PSD).