Use of remote sensing to promote the implementation and monitoring of low-carbon agriculture practices (ABC+ Plan)

ABSTRACT: Approximately one-third of the Brazilian territory is occupied by agriculture and livestock, which,  although present in all biomes, are particularly prominent in the Cerrado and the Amazon, biomes that are both characterized and threatened by the rapid dynamics of land conversions and the expansion of the agricultural frontier.  In line with the urgency of ecological transition/transformation and the strategic importance of the bioeconomy for  the country, the federal government has expanded the scope of the technologies in the ABC+ Plan (Low-Carbon  Agriculture) focused on the adoption of sustainable production systems and processes (SPSabc). At the same time, it  has launched a very ambitious goal (Presidential Decree No. 11.815, from December 5, 2023) to recover 40 million  hectares of degraded pastures within 10 years, converting part of these pastures into integrated crop-livestock forestry production systems. This special session, while discussing the potential of MapBiomas Collection 9 data in  supporting sustainable agri-food systems, addresses pressing challenges, including the use of new remote sensing  imagery and classification models for mapping complex landscapes (e.g., crop-livestock-forestry rotation and  integration) and the operational verification of results (e.g., variation in soil organic carbon, reduction and/or offset  of emissions).