Embrapa launched the digital platform Trigo no Brasil on March 24, offering a data- and map-based overview of the country’s wheat production chain. The platform covers the full value chain, from on-farm production and imports to industrial processing and exports. It also includes, for the first time, an estimate of the share of irrigated and rainfed wheat production systems in Central Brazil, where cultivation has expanded in recent years. In addition, the tool presents possible scenarios for increasing national wheat production.
Developed to support public policy and private investment in the expansion of wheat cultivation in Brazil, the platform responds to a demand from the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock (Mapa). In 2024, Brazil imported 7 million tonnes of wheat, making it the only major grain chain in which the country is not self-sufficient. At the same time, commercial and logistical developments have helped position Brazil in the wheat export market. Between 2020 and 2025, export volumes increased 11.5-fold, reaching markets in Asia, Africa and the Middle East. Domestic production has also grown significantly in recent years, helping to reduce dependence on foreign supply.
These are some of the figures available through the Trigo no Brasil platform, which is the result of joint work by Embrapa Territorial and Embrapa Trigo, with support from teams at Embrapa headquarters and Embrapa Solos. The platform forms part of a broader project, funded by Mapa, aimed at encouraging wheat cultivation in tropical environments and advancing Brazil’s goal of national self-sufficiency in grain production.
Alongside production, import and export data, the platform also provides information on processing, employment, cost and price history, and industrial infrastructure. Some datasets include historical series dating back to the early 2000s and are broken down by microregion, covering both the traditional wheat-growing areas in the South and expansion regions in the Midwest, Southeast and Northeast, according to a press release.
“During the construction of the platform, we sought to identify the location of the main agents with the intention of understanding the dynamics of the chain, based on information about the geographical distribution, the number of these actors in Brazil and the historical evolution of the indicators,” explains Álvaro Augusto Dossa, analyst at Embrapa Trigo.
The tool structured in the concepts of Strategic Territorial Intelligence (ITE) offers integrated data for analyzes that direct actions aimed at self-sufficiency in wheat in Brazil. Dossa recalls that the expansion of triculture in the Cerrado is a key piece for the country to achieve this self-sufficiency, and connecting data on this area with those of the rest of the country is essential when thinking about the production chain and the supply of raw materials to the industry. “We can’t just consider the Cerrado because the decisions are not isolated. For example, we also have to observe the expressive consumption in the Northeast of Brazil, a region in which the population is large,” he evaluates.
Seed supply by end use
One of the platform’s main strengths is that it brings together wheat data that had previously been scattered across different institutions. Beyond that, it adds new layers of insight generated through analysis by Embrapa specialists with sector knowledge and experience in data processing and interpretation.
This is particularly evident in the seed production panel. While the original database is available on the Ministry of Agriculture website in spreadsheet form, containing details such as municipality, planted area, category, species and cultivar used by each producer, the Embrapa team went further by creating new classifications based on the last two variables. This made it possible to estimate seed availability for different wheat uses and to identify the balance between newer and older cultivars. According to Embrapa Territorial analyst Hilton Ferraz da Silveira, producing this and other information panels required careful curation and interpretation by professionals with a strong understanding of the sector.
Seed supply is one example of how the platform goes beyond simply organising existing data. It reflects a broader effort to identify, analyse and extract information that was previously buried in reports and documents from different organisations. For example, data on the production, consumption and prices of wheat-derived products were manually compiled from yearbooks published by the Brazilian Association of Biscuit, Pasta, Bread and Cake Industries (Abimapi) and organised into a historical series. As a result, users can quickly track trends in the production and sales of biscuits, pasta, breads, industrial cakes and retail flour from 2017 to 2024.
Links across the production chain
The platform also provides information that helps measure and explain how Brazil’s wheat production chain is organised geographically. A map showing the distribution of different links in the chain indicates that they are concentrated mainly in the South, but are also present in Central and Northeastern Brazil. A closer look at the data shows that in the Northeast, for example, both mills and seed producers are active. Seed production is concentrated in western Bahia, a Cerrado region where wheat is grown, while mills are located along the coast. According to Silveira, these mills process much of the imported wheat entering the country through regional ports.
By comparing the locations of cooperatives and mills with cultivation areas, the maps also highlight regions where such infrastructure remains limited, particularly in states where wheat production has expanded more recently. The platform further shows which regions have greater or lesser availability of bulk grain storage facilities that could be used for wheat. However, Silveira notes that these structures are currently used mainly for soybeans and maize, adding another layer of complexity to the wheat chain. Because mills and food industries require a steady supply of raw material throughout the year, limited storage capacity for domestic wheat means the market must rely on exports and imports to help balance supply and demand.
Data on Brazil’s international wheat trade are also available on the platform. In addition to volumes and values, the tool identifies the Brazilian microregions that export and import wheat and wheat products, as well as the countries of origin and destination involved in this trade. It also shows the ports through which these flows move. In 2024, Brazil exported 2.9 million tonnes of wheat, with more than one-third shipped through the Port of Rio Grande in Rio Grande do Sul, while Vietnam was the main destination. Although exports are concentrated in wheat grain, the platform also records shipments of flour, pasta and biscuits. Imports, by contrast, reached 7 million tonnes, coming mainly from Argentina, with most arrivals handled through the Port of Santos.
The platform also makes it possible to assess the scale of Brazil’s wheat-processing industry and trade in wheat-derived products. It provides data on the number of establishments and associated jobs across three segments: milling; manufacturing, including pasta, bread and biscuits; and trade, covering wholesale and retail sales of cereals and flour as well as bakeries. Maps show the number of establishments and jobs per 100,000 inhabitants in each microregion, allowing for analysis that takes population density into account.
In the section dedicated to the economics of production, users can access data on production costs, crop values and prices paid for wheat from 2002 to 2024. The platform also includes information that allows agricultural insurance trends to be analysed.
“The platform fills a gap of organized data and estimates to both scale the wheat chain in an integrated way and analyze its expansion capacity and the bottlenecks to overcome,” says Hilton Silveira. He believes that the information, some of which was first presented, can pave the way to expand and improve the availability of data on the sector.
