On August 30, the Capivara farm in Santo Antônio de Goiás, Embrapa Cotton’s regional center in the Brazilian State of Goiás, received 25 representatives of Colombia, including members of the Ministry of Agriculture and representatives of the cotton farming sector of that country. The visit is part of the project “Support to the strengthening of the cotton industry of Colombia”, led by the Brazilian Cooperation Agency (ABC) of the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the Government of Colombia. In addition to the South Americans, eight researchers from Mali and Mozambique were invited to join the delegation, they attended the 12th Brazilian Cotton Congress, held in Goiânia, on August 27 - 29..

The African members of this delegation take part in the “Programme to Promote Decent Work in Cotton-Producing Countries in Africa and Latin America”, which, according to João Luiz Soares, the representative of ABC and South-South cooperation assistant of the International Labour Organization (ILO), involves Tanzania, Paraguay and Peru, as well as Mali and Mozambique. This ILO action aims to contribute to the cotton-producing communities in African and South American nations at a social level, through the systematization and sharing of Brazilian experiences and their subsequent adaptation in these countries.

The visitors were welcomed by the head of Embrapa Rice and Beans, Alcido Elenor Wander, Embrapa Cotton's head of Technology Transfer, João Henrique Zonta, and researchers from the Regional Cotton Center. At the opening, the head of the research center introduced Embrapa to the attendees, presented numbers and projects of the company, places it operates worldwide and he also explained the presence of teams from other Embrapa Units within Embrapa Rice and Beans. "Embrapa teams go wherever necessary to help with the crop with which they work, so here we are talking about cotton, because Embrapa Cotton researchers have come to promote the growth of this crop in the Cerrado,” said Alcido Wander.

Then, the Agriculture Ministry representative and head of the delegation, Ruth Ybarrio spoke, and she thanked ABC for the receptiveness and efforts in favor of her country's agriculture. “This project favors the exchange of experiences and allows us to increase our activities, improving crops, production and the quality of what we produce,” she said.

After the welcoming presentations, Embrapa Cotton's researchers Camillo Morello and Alexandre Barcellos gave a lecture on topics related to cotton culture. Morello spoke about the development of varieties,  environment, soil, climate, pests, and diseases characteristics, and work in the management of production systems in the Cerrado. Barcellos addressed the no-till system, cotton crop treatments, nutrition and fertilization.

In the afternoon, the entire delegation went to the Goiás Association of Cotton Producers (Agopa). They were received at the Cotton House - Agopa's headquarters - by the executive director of the institution, Dulcimar Pessatto Filho, for a lecture on the laboratorial analysis of cotton carried out by the association. The lecture was taught by the manager of the Agopa's Laboratory for Visual and Technological Classification of Cotton Fibre, Rhudson Assolari, who spoke about the parameters of the main intrinsic features of the fiber and guided visitors through the laboratory.

Translation: Emanuelle Galdino, supervised by Mariana Medeiros