tion and printing under normal circumstances. The survey system 6 @
developed at the IBC should be able to reduce interpretation pe-
riods (for at least Parana and Sao Paulo States - representing -
90% of coffee production) to less than one month. This leaves -
the IBC Photointerpretation Service with a map production bottle-
“neck. If computer mapping system could reduce this time to at
least one or two months a hightly satisfactory survey and mapping
system would result.
The importance of the timeliness of analysis and mapping
of coffee survey data relates to the international market situa-
tion of this crop. The enormous supplies of coffee entering world
trade from Brazil and the repeated frosts (about once every 3 ye-
ars) cause a bacis instability in the market. The rapid production w -
Of a frost attack statistics, for example, would indicate to the
International Coffee Organization the likely physical short ages
to be expected. Pilot programmes already completed by IBC indica
te that frost attack production-recovery prediction might also be
feasible (not only estimates of frost losses in the short run).
COMPUTER METHODS, DATA BANKS AND INFORMATION
Perhaps the main advantage of computer methods for the
above type of work is speed.
Since all of the data used would be in computer-usable
form, use could be made of this to form a data bank so that addi-
tional data on economic variables, climate, etc. could be fed in-
to the same data bank for mapping purpose also. Cross relation--
ships between coffee concentration and economic investment or ru-
ral credit facilities and a host of other input-output relatioshi
ps could be analysed.
The ease with which computer methods can correlate large
amounts of geographical data permits planners and interested indi
viduals to increase their information levels on a series of charac
teristios of the coffee crop, the economics of production and cli
matic-production relationships. Such information analysis is ba- e -
sic for a well-orientated field extension service to coffee pro-
ducers.
