São Paulo – On this Monday (10th) in the Brazilian capital Brasília, the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa) will inaugurate its Strategic Studies and Training unit, which will provide training to foreigners, among other actions. The international centre will be inaugurated by the Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, in the presence of African heads of state currently attending the Brazil-Africa Dialogue on Food Security, Fight Against Hunger and Rural Development in Brasília.
According to the Embrapa, the unit will make international cooperation actions swifter. The unit’s mission is to promote and coordinate studies on strategic matters that will contribute to the improvement of Embrapa, and provide training in tropical agriculture to domestic and foreign talents. The Embrapa is a leading researcher in the field, and the centre, which has an area of 4,200 square meters, received 9.4 million Brazilian real (US$ 5.1 million) in investment.
According to information supplied by the company, the unit will train professionals – Embrapa employees or otherwise –, technicians from partner institutions, public and private enterprises. The initiative will also help Embrapa meet its demand for international cooperation, as the company receives several requests for training and technology transfer from abroad. Before the end of the year, training should be provided to technicians involved in Brazil-Africa cooperation projects.
According to researcher Beatriz da Silveira Pinheiro, head of Embrapa Strategic Studies and Training, each of the countries involved in the Brazil-Africa Dialogue will appoint two trainees. They will receive theoretic training at the new centre, including information on Embrapa. Afterwards, they will head to other units for training in four fields: fodder, sorghum and maize, seed production, and soy farming. The first course will be held in August of this year, and the last ones, in March 2011; each trainee will opt for one field of study.
The unit’s international cooperation work will be carried out in partnership with the Brazilian Cooperation Agency (ABC, in the Portuguese acronym). Beatriz explains that in the case of the courses for the Africans, the agency will provide financial support to the foreigners and the Embrapa will cater to its own researchers involved. In the future, however, other partnerships should be sought to help develop future projects. "In time, we will also have distance learning," explains the head of the new unit.
Beatriz underscores that the Embrapa already used to worked this way – with training and international cooperation –, and with the new unit, it will be possible to do it in a more organized fashion. The unit will also play an important role in training professionals from the Embrapa itself. The centre will have a stripped-down structure, for it will use the structures of other units in its administrative processes.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
