Solutions for Agroforestry
Quasar Space offers large and small producers , cooperatives , NGOs , communities , and governments efficient solutions for monitoring various agroforestry parameters. Integrated digital solutions, using intelligent analysis of multispectral satellite imagery and high-resolution synthetic aperture radar (SAR), processed in the cloud using Artificial Intelligence, enable the identification of different plant resources within forests, as well as vegetation health, stimulating plant extraction and ensuring efficient monitoring of greenhouse gas emissions—a key indicator for the carbon credit market.
Resource Mapping
Species Identification
Agroforestry Monitoring
Monitoring of gas emissions
Stimulating Plant Extraction
Plant Health Check
Rubber trees in the Amazon
In 2022, the company was one of 4 selected (among 87 competitors) by the Amazônia Bioeconomy Connections project, a call promoted by the Brazilian Embassy in Berlin that aimed to facilitate the establishment of partnerships between Brazilian initiatives focused on the bioeconomy in the Amazon biome and economic and technical-scientific partners in Germany.
Brazil is historically one of the key figures in the global rubber market: Between 1879 and 1912, with the growing international demand for latex, the Brazilian economy went through a cycle of intense exploration and extraction of rubber, with the Amazon region being the world's largest producer .
The rubber market is significant, generating over R$28 billion annually in Brazil. However, with the turn of the century, competition from Asian rubber plantations began to drive the global market away from Brazilian rubber. Currently, less than 35% of the latex produced is domestic (approximately 180,000 tons), with only 1% of domestic production coming from the Brazilian states that are home to the Amazon rainforest. Over 65% of Brazilian demand is imported from Asian countries , with Thailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia accounting for 70% of global rubber production, in a market expected to grow to US$51 billion by 2028.
The major problem facing rubber trees in the Amazon region is that the humid climate intensifies the spread of the fungus Microcyclus ulei , which is responsible for a significant reduction in latex extraction. Identifying which trees are infected with the fungus allows local residents to treat each specimen separately, thus ensuring greater production. The cost of treating the fungus is approximately R$0.80 per rubber tree and has no environmental impact because it is a natural compound.
Thus, encouraging domestic production stimulates the sector, develops the extractive region, and consequently supplies public coffers. Encouraging latex extraction also reduces interest in predatory agriculture and livestock farming, helping to reduce deforestation rates . Finally, the rubber tree also provides significant environmental benefits, as it is one of the most efficient plants for controlling the greenhouse effect, in addition to its great potential for preserving springs and restoring degraded soils, allowing the maintenance of natural vegetation between planting rows. According to estimates, each hectare of forest has the capacity to neutralize 270 tons of carbon dioxide over a 20-year period. Some crops have greater absorption capacity, and in the case of rubber trees, each tree can capture, on average, up to 150 kilograms of CO2 .
In this context, Quasar Space presented its project to monitor rubber trees in the Amazon region. The company provides geographic information and maps based on the distribution of rubber trees in the Amazon region , as well as individual health indicators of these tree specimens obtained through multispectral and SAR imagery, available to end users on both a platform and via iOS/Android.
With the precise location and monitoring of the health of rubber trees, productivity in latex extraction is increased , providing small communities and families that rely on rubber extraction as a source of income with the knowledge necessary to strengthen local extraction .
This initiative is currently being expanded in scope to encompass different plant species and economic activities, such as monitoring açaí production and mapping cocoa populations , expanding the target market to encompass a broader range of Amazonian extractivism, as well as businesses in the Amazonian food production and pharmaceutical industries.
