Meat
Science for food security, with economic viability and environmental sustainability
Photo : Fagner Almeida
From the farm to the table
By 2050, world food production will have to grow by 70% to supply the entire planet. However, it is necessary to produce food in a sustainable way in order not to aggravate environmental impacts such as greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and biodiversity reduction, for example.
Moreover, consumers from all over the world are increasingly demanding more respect for workers involved in the different production processes, in addition to animal welfare. All that must be associated with a production with a high standard of health.
In Brazil, the beef, buffalo, goat, sheep, pork and poultry meat chains create millions of direct and indirect jobs. Combined, they account for about one third of the gross value that is produced by national crop and livestock production. We are the world's largest exporters of chicken, pork and beef.
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Innovation challenges
- Increasing the efficiency of dietary and nutritional supplementation of beef cattle, sheep and goats;
- Increase the efficiency of and accessibility to traditional reproductive biotechniques for breeding and genetic improvement, and production of swine, poultry, cattle,goat and sheep herds;
- Increasing the competitiveness of beef cattle, sheep, goat, buffalo, pork and poultry meat produced in marginal areas or in non-intensive production systems of the Brazilian Central-West, North and Northeast regions;
- Diversifying raw materials that are alternatives to corn and soybean for the diet composition of swine and poultry production systems in the South, Southeast and Northeast regions;
- Minimizing seasonality effects and low reproductive efficiency of goat and sheep meat production systems in the South, Southeast, Northeast and Central-West regions;
- Reducing the Brazilian dependence on the import of swine and poultry breeding stock genetics;
- Reducing slaughter and first reproduction age in beef cattle, sheep and goat production systems;;
- Reducing and mitigating ammonia and other greenhouse gas emissions in livestock production systems;
- Enabling the adequate environmental and sanitary disposal of domestic animals that are discarded from livestock production;
- Implementing a national computerized platform for genomic and large population data treatment in cattle, swine, poultry, goat and sheep chains.
Partnerships and Business
Embrapa's Innovation Model focuses on open innovation, which relies on partnerships since the beginning of each project for the sake of the market insertion of new assets. Find out how to jointly invent with Embrapa technological solutions that add value to business and enable innovation in the agricultural production sector.
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