Embrapa's research programs encompass interrelated projects that are coordinated to achieve benefits that would not be obtained with their individual management.

Each programs contains complementary and synergic projects, which contributes to unifying corporate RD&I management, and hence increase the potential impacts and results to the benefit of the agricultural production sector and society.

The programs compose the Embrapa Management System (SEG, from the acronym in Portuguese) and are at a level between the portfolios (which comprise sets of projects that share themes and challenges) and the projects (which are SEG's most basic unit and can be defined as a set of temporary targeted efforts to create and deliver exclusive products, processes or results).

Types of programs

Embrapa currently has five types of program:  

Programs to support public policy

Their goal is to support the elaboration, implementation, monitoring and assessment of public policy and regulatory frameworks that relate to the agricultural sector. This group includes the Agricultural Climate Risk Zoning (Zarc), PronaSolos, AgroNordeste and the Low Carbon Agriculture Plan ABC+.

Breeding and genetic improvement programs

These programs aim to develop plants, animals or microorganisms with desirable genotypic and phenotypic traits to improve the levels of production, productivity or product quality, in line with demands from agricultural production systems and from the market. 

Institutional development programs

In the institutional development group there are programs that aim to support corporate management based on the generation of organizational assets, incremental improvements, and innovations in the organizational processes for higher effectiveness in the generation of technological innovations. 

International programs

International programs are coordinated to contribute towards achieving Embrapa's and international partners' strategic goals and targets and combine the technical-scientific skills and resources of different institutions. Some examples include the programs developed by Embrapa in partnerships with Agropolis, Inta and BBSRC.

Co-funded programs

These programs are coordinated to contribute towards achieving Embrapa's and national partners' strategic goals and targets and combine the technical-scientific skills and resources of different institutions, like the ICLFS Network, InovaSocial, the Integrated Amazon Project and BRS Aqua.