São Paulo – Research and development has been contributing to greater productivity and efficiency of Brazilian agriculture. With 35 years in operation, the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa) has placed Brazil in global leadership in tropical agriculture, through genetic engineering, variety of grain and similar areas. This information was supplied by the Ministry of Agriculture.
In the last 17 years, the Brazilian grain harvest has grown 146%, and the area on which it is cultivated has grown just 24%. Studies developed by the Embrapa allowed the country, for example, to become the second main soy exporter using seeds adapted to the Brazilian climate. One of the reasons for this efficiency is the level of knowledge of the researchers at the organisation, 74% of whom have doctorates.
Research has also elevated Brazil to the position of global reference in biotechnology and genetic improvement of grain. With the development of new irrigation, soil correction and sustainable fertilization technologies, the production of soy, maize, rice and coffee in drylands, for example, has grown to 59%, 26%, 18% and 48%, of Brazilian produce in the sector, respectively, being that in the 1960s, for example, agricultural activity in drylands was limited to cattle farming, due to the low agricultural production.
New technologies have also contributed to greater animal production. In the last three decades, the offer of Brazilian beef and pork was multiplied by three and that of chicken, by 18 times. Dairy production, in turn, has risen from 7.9 billion litres in 1975 to 25.4 billion litres.
In the case of fruit production in the São Francisco River Valley, for example, studies and research in the region have made it the largest fruit production hub in the country. The cultivation of mangoes and grapes covers 33,000 hectares between Petrolina, in Pernambuco, and Juazeiro, in Bahia.
For agricultural research of Brazil to reach even more expressive results, the government of Brazil established, in May, the Embrapa Growth Acceleration Program (PAC), to invest 914 million Brazilian reals (US$ 590 million) in the area by 2010. Embrapa, which is present in almost all of the Brazilian states, has 38 research and 13 administrative units operating in the area of sustainable agricultural and forestry organisation, monitoring, management and production. There are over 8,000 employees, being 2,113 researchers.
*Translated by Mark Ament
