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USP researchers develop techniques to track the origin of meat, wood, and soy using AI, chemistry, and nuclear technology. Understand the project.
Brazilian researchers are developing scientific tools capable of tracking the geographical origin of three of the country’s main commodities — beef, wood, and soy — using artificial intelligence, nuclear technology, and advanced chemical analysis.
The project, called RastreIA, is coordinated by Prof. Elisabete Aparecida de Nadai Fernandes along with a specialized technical team and students from the Radioisotope Laboratory of CENA/USP and arises in response to a growing global market demand: it is no longer enough to know what is being sold, it is necessary to prove where it came from and how it was produced.
The initiative gains momentum at a time when Brazil is under international pressure for practices associated with deforestation and illegal exploitation of natural resources — and when transparency in production chains has become a decisive criterion for market access, according to information from Compre Rural.
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The problem: fraud and illegality in production chains
The numbers are alarming. According to a survey by Rede Simex, based on satellite images analyzed between August 2023 and July 2024 and cross-referenced with official data from environmental agencies, 62% of timber extraction in the Amazon does not have legal authorization. Of the total illegal extraction, 44% occurs within protected areas — such as indigenous territories, rural settlements, and conservation units.
The case of ipê well illustrates the gravity of the problem. A highly valued species in the international market, it is estimated that only 20% of ipê wood traded is not related to illegal activities. The high demand and economic value of the species make it a frequent target of irregular extraction networks.
Furthermore, researcher Dr. Sérgio Raposo, from Embrapa, points out that deforestation is a common link between the three commodities analyzed. According to him, cattle ranching often serves as an initial form of occupation of irregularly cleared areas, which can then be converted to other productive activities, such as soy cultivation.
How traditional documents can be deceived
The main legal instrument for the transport and storage of native wood species in Brazil is the Forest Origin Document (DOF), required by Ibama. The problem, according to specialists consulted in the project, is that this type of license can be falsified.
Environmental analyst Alexandre Gontijo, from the Forest Products Laboratory of the Brazilian Forest Service, explains that there are two common types of fraud in this system:
- Taxonomic fraud: when a wood species is declared as if it were another, usually to evade inspection;
- Origin fraud: when the location stated in the document does not correspond to the actual location from which the wood was extracted.
In practice, the result is a product circulating in the market with an appearance of legality, but which may have been extracted in a completely irregular manner. It is precisely this loophole that science seeks to close.
The “fingerprint” of products: how chemical traceability works
The scientific basis of RastreIA lies in what researchers call the products’ chemical signature. The logic is that the environment in which an organism lives — the soil, water, climate, vegetation — leaves measurable marks in the composition of the produced material. These marks function as a kind of geographical fingerprint, difficult to falsify.
In the case of wood, the chemical composition of the tree carries information about the environment in which it grew. In beef, the animal’s diet, the water it consumed, and the soil characteristics of the rearing region directly influence the final product’s chemical profile. In soy, the principle is the same: the productive environment leaves detectable traces.
Researcher Dr. Sérgio Raposo summarizes this logic with a direct phrase: “the living being is what it eats”. In other words, everything the animal ingests and absorbs throughout its life can, in theory, be detected in the meat that reaches the market.
On the other hand, the great advantage of this approach is that the chemical composition **cannot be altered with the same ease as a document**. While physical and digital records can be manipulated, the chemical signature preserves information about the material’s true origin.
Technologies used for precise tracing
The RastreIA project combines different scientific tools to identify the origin of commodities. Among the main techniques under development are:
- **Multielemental and isotopic analysis:** identifies chemical elements present in the product that function as geographical markers;
- **Artificial intelligence:** processes large volumes of data and builds comparison models between samples from different regions;
- **Nuclear technology:** used for precise readings of chemical composition in the laboratory;
- **Near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS):** a technique that analyzes wood samples using electromagnetic radiation, with the advantage of being usable directly in the field, accelerating inspection.
Researcher **Dr. Teresa Cristina Pastore**, a wood chemistry specialist at the Forest Products Laboratory, highlights an important practical challenge: when wood has already been cut and processed, it often lacks leaves, fruits, or other botanical elements that would facilitate visual identification. In these cases, technologies that perform rapid readings and compare them with statistical databases become fundamental.
To ensure the accuracy of the results, researchers work with **broad and representative sample databases**, gathering materials from different individuals, regions, and production systems. The larger this comparison base, the more reliable the tracing model tends to be.
How tracing can become an economic differentiator for Brazil
Although the debate on traceability has a strong environmental component, the researchers involved in the project argue that it also needs to be seen as an **economic asset**. In increasingly demanding markets, proving a product’s origin can mean access to premium buyers, more advantageous contracts, and reduced risks to companies’ reputations.
Researcher **Dr. Gabriela Bielefeld Nardotto**, from the Department of Ecology at the University of Brasília (UnB), reinforces this view by stating that tracing doesn’t just mean identifying a point on a map. For her, it’s about *”reconstructing the history of that product, understanding where it came from, under what conditions it was produced, and what impact it may have generated”*.
Therefore, for slaughterhouses, trading companies, sawmills, exporters, and rural producers, traceability ceases to be merely a bureaucratic obligation and begins to function as a **seal of trust** — capable of separating those who produce legally from those who operate illegally.
Brazil at the center of global climate demands
The international political context makes this agenda even more urgent. The holding of **COP30 in Belém** in 2025 positioned Brazil at the center of discussions on climate and sustainability. At the same time, the weight of agribusiness in Brazilian exports makes the discussion inevitable on how to reconcile large-scale production, environmental conservation, and climate responsibility.
Furthermore, before the advancement of regularization and data collection plans, more than 55% of companies in the sector that did not require authorization did not even send basic information to the government — which compromised the creation of efficient public policies for the sector.
Dr. Gabriela Nardotto summarizes what is at stake: proper management is, according to her, the “stamp of sustainability” for wood, cattle, and soy. In other words, the future of Brazilian commodities will not only depend on producing more, but on proving how, where, and under what conditions this production takes place.
The challenge now is to transform science into a practical tool
RastreIA represents a concrete bet by Brazil on uniting productivity, preservation, and credibility. If the tools under development reach the field and production chains at scale, the country will be able to advance on a strategic front: protecting forests, combating unfair competition, and consolidating its position as an agro-environmental power.
In a global market that increasingly demands proof — and not just promises —, the ability to trace origin with scientific precision may soon become not a differentiator, but a basic requirement for anyone wishing to export to the world’s most demanding markets.
With information from Compre Rural and CENA/USP
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