The Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa) was visited by the executive director of the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA), Yemi Akinbamijo, accompanied by the researcher Abdulrazak Ibrahim on May 10, 2018. FARA is an international organization headquartered in Ghana, which encourages and coordinates cooperation between countries and strategic institutions on behalf of agricultural research, development and innovation in Africa. The partnership with Embrapa, which started in 2010, has focused on science and technology in the areas of agriculture and natural resources. The goal of Akinbamijo's visit was to propose strengthenging such collaboration, especially in terms of capacity-building for personnel and institutions in the 55 African countries the Forum represents. They were welcomed by Embrapa's Secretary of Research and Development, Bruno Brasil, and by the managers of Strategic International Relations, Alexandre Amaral, and of R&D Network Articulation, Alba Chiesse, among other researchers. During the visit, Akinbamijo showed Embrapa the Program of Holistic Capacity-building for Subsistence (HELP), which aims at strengthening human and institutional capacity in agricultural research for development in Africa based on different activities, including the training of African students in Brazilian agricultural research institutions and universities. At the end, FARA's representatives pledged to send Embrapa a document detailing priority areas to intensify cooperation. An experience that worked out The Nigerian researcher Abdulrazak Ibrahim, who accompanied FARA's director, is an example of an African student that has been trained at Embrapa. He developed his PhD thesis at Embrapa Genetic Resources and Biotechnology's Lab of Genetic Engineering Applied to Tropical Agriculture, with the researcher Francisco Aragão as advisor. The work resulted in a new methodology to produce insect pest-resistant plants based on a RNA interference technology whose patent request was filed in 2016. Ibrahim hopes that the success of his work at Embrapa and in Brazil can be extended to other African scientists and students. According to the Forum's director and him, for many years the biggest concern was taking Africa out of extreme poverty and hunger. Nowadays, the focus is on innovation. “We need to invest in methods that shorten the path between the lab and the field”, Ibrahim underscores. From the field to the lab According to the African representatives, a recent initiative named “Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation” (TAAT), funded by the African Development Bank in partnership with international aid agencies, is the backdrop for such change in paradigms in the continent. Also known as Feed Africa Strategy, TAAT is essentially a knowledge and innovation-based response to the recognized need to expand proven technologies to all of Africa, with the aim of increasing productivity and making the continent self-sufficient in staple products. The lack of technology in the field is one of the many factors that have stopped Africa from reaching its full agricultural potential. Despite the wealth in natural resources and the large quantity of arable lands, the yield from harvests in Africa has grown little in the past 25 years and remains the lowest of any region of the world, 56% below the global average. According to Akinbamijo,the TAAT program is the continent's response to the pressing need to change such scenario. It is an “advanced plan to reach a fast transformation of Africa", he asserts. For that purpose, eight agricultural products were marked as priorities: rice, maize, soybeans, dairy, fish, poultry, beans and sorghum. The goal is to invest in the modernization of technologies and in capacity-building for scientists and production agents to make the continent self-sufficient in food production, reducing the massive imports that take place today. “Agriculture is the most important source of economic diversification and wealth, as well as a powerful mechanism to generate jobs”, concludes the director of the international Forum. Translation: Mariana Medeiros