Pará will have electronic cattle tracking system (Estadão)
Source: Estadão - SP, 11/07/2009
The Ministry of Agriculture will invest R $ 1 million in the implementation of a satellite geomonitoring system to inspect the deforestation of preserved areas and track cattle in Pará. The system will be implemented by the end of the year, initially, in the South and East of the State, an area in which deforestation is considered most critical, informed Agriculture Minister Reinhold Stephanes.
State producers have been suffering boycotts of supermarkets and slaughterhouses, after the Public Ministry of Pará decided to hold these establishments responsible in solidarity if they sell meat and meat products from farms whose owners are accused of environmental crimes.
The annual cost of maintaining the system of R $ 2,5 million will be initially paid for by the Ministry, but in the following years it should be shared with producers, slaughterhouses, and the National Bank for Social Economic Development (BNDES), which also participates in the project.
One year after the first phase of implementation of the project, the expectation is that all of Pará already has coverage of the system, prepared by the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa).
Stephanes recalled that livestock is considered one of the top five responsible for the degradation of the environment. The others are coal, extraction, wood and settlement. “With that, this discussion that exists and ends up being sterile ends.”
Adherence to satellite monitoring will be mandatory in the State. The most critical area includes 150 square kilometers, where 12 producing farms are located.
Pará is in a position to perform geomonitoring because there is no animal traffic in the state without issuing an Animal Transit Guide (GTA), which functions as an ox passport. “What do I need to do, then? Issuing an electronic GTA in Pará with data linked to a networked computer, transmitting the information in real time ”, said the minister.
The Federation of Agriculture and Livestock of the State of Pará (Faepa) will look for images produced by local institutions since the 1970s to prove that there was no illegal deforestation of areas in the same proportion pointed out by NGOs and the Public Ministry.