Brazilian farmers struggle to operate farm machinery at full capacity

Many Brazilian farmers are unable to utilize modern farm machinery to its fullest capacity due to lack of reliable internet connection in rural areas. Agricultural machinery is increasingly being designed to be updated online. According to Tim Participações, over 90% of Brazilian farms do not have access to the internet. In contrast, a 2017 US Agricultural Department report said more than 70% of US farmers enjoy broadband internet.

Christian Gonzalez, the vice president (South America) for Case IH, the agricultural machines division of CNH Industrial NV, said: “This is a structural issue that we have in Brazil that we need to solve.” Gonzalez pointed out that modern equipment such as harvesters and planters can be updated in real-time while the farmers are operating – making them more efficient.

Last year, US farm machinery producer John Deere tried to overcome the problem by taking measures to help farmers in rural Brazil set up LET antennas on farms and provide internet connections for machines and vehicles.

Other companies have tried the same approach. According to Reuters, Brazilian telecom company Tim joined forces with agricultural product suppliers to develop an open-sourced platform to operate 4G internet connection, the ConectarAgro program.

Brazil has around 65m hectares of farmland. Tim plans to provide 5m hectares of farmland with an internet connection by the end of this year. Local telecom rival Oi closed a deal to provide internet to an 87,000 hectare farm managed by soybean producer and trader AMaggi in Mato Grosso state, said Reuters.

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