Increasing international interest in sustainable Brazilian agriculture
Increasing international interest in sustainable Brazilian agriculture
Information, assets, and production systems for a sustainable agriculture in Brazil are raising the interest of scientific organizations and multilateral institutions. Alexandre Amaral, head of Advisory Service for International Relations, verified it after returning from recent missions in India and in France, representing the Presidency of Embrapa, in April.
According to Amaral, both in New Delhi, at a meeting with the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), and in Paris, during negotiations with the Committee for Agriculture of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the leaders of the organizations showed interest in knowing Brazilian advances in the development of a sustainable agriculture and its contributions to formulate public policies.
Amaral went to Varanasi, India, to discuss the accomplishment of G20 Meeting of Agricultural Chief Scientists (MACS), which Embrapa and the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Food Supply will be in charge of organizing it. Brazil may host the meeting in 2024, since Brazil will assume the G20 presidency (see specific article in this newsletter). After Varanasi, Amaral traveled to New Delhi to debate the cooperation between Embrapa and ICAR with its head of international affairs.
ICAR leaderships want to cooperate with at least three important R&D projects. One of them is on how Low-Carbon Agriculture has been being established in Brazil, and, specifically, about the experience with Integrated Crop-Livestock-Forestry Systems. They intend to replicate these systems in small properties in India, where the rural establishment average area is of 1 ha.
The other project is on the development of production systems of pearl millet for human consumption, product Brazil uses basically for animal feed, in a perspective Brazil could supply India. And eventually, the development of digital agriculture for family farming. The Indians intend to organize an online workshop to discuss these topics.
In Paris, Amaral was invited by OCDE to discuss the participation of Embrapa in studies on Systems Thinking, Anticipation and Resilience, which are being developed in a partnership between OCDE and International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), an international research institute, with its headquarters in Vienna, Austria, that develops systemic analyses to support public policies to improve sustainable development.
OCDE intends to develop future scenarios to guide public policies that deal with risks to human condition, such as lack of food security, climate changes, urban violence, or territorial disputes, as wars.
Alexandre Amaral observed that a number of these situations could be mitigate by implementing sustainable agriculture, which can be considered crucial in any public policy created to face matters of human security. Jens Lundsgaard, deputy director of OCDE for Science, Technology and Innovation, agreed with Amaral. He recognized this vision is essential in the organization studies.
Support to diplomacy
The missions of the Advisory Service for International Relations, both in India and in France, included meetings with Brazilian agricultural attachés in India and France. The attachés commented that the work of Embrapa in developing sustainable agriculture based in science is a reference to Europe and Asia, as well as an important point in negotiations between Brazil and other countries located in these regions. They suggest that Embrapa expands its participation in these initiatives.
Renato Cruz Silva (MTb 610/DF)
Superintendency of Communications (Sucom)
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Phone number: 61981189229
Translation: Ana Maranhão
Superintendency of Communications (Sucom)
Further information on the topic
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