BRAZIL – In a step towards enhancing agricultural resilience, the Brazilian Agriculture Research Corporation (Embrapa) and CGIAR, the world’s largest publicly funded agricultural research network, have formalized a comprehensive cooperation agreement.

A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed at Embrapa’s headquarters in Brasília marks a new era of collaboration in agricultural research, targeting critical challenges such as climate change and malnutrition.

The signing occurred against the backdrop of a worsening climate crisis. Recent floods devastated one of Brazil’s top food-producing regions, destroying lives, livelihoods, and vital agricultural infrastructure.

The MoU outlines several key areas of collaboration, including the adaptation and resilience of production systems and strategic crops, genebank management and expansion, scaling up digital innovations, improving modeling and data analysis, and implementing solutions to meet nutritional needs.

“We believe that science, innovation, and partnership offer the best hope for meeting the world’s most urgent challenges – rising hunger and malnutrition, biodiversity loss, and climate change,” said Ismahane Elouafi, Executive Managing Director of CGIAR at the signing ceremony.

“We know this vision is shared with our partner, Embrapa, one of the world’s leading national agricultural research institutions. With the signing of this MoU, we are taking a step towards making that shared vision a reality.”

Strengths and reach

The MoU combines the strengths of Embrapa with the global reach of CGIAR. CGIAR today represents 15 research centers working in over 80 countries, alongside more than 3,000 partners.

National agricultural research systems (NARES) such as Embrapa are central peers in delivering research and results.

Embrapa is a state agency under the Brazilian Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock (Mapa) that engages farmers, scientific organizations, and both government and civil leaders. The institution continuously ensures Brazil’s food security and a leading position in the international food, fiber, and energy market.

Expanding collaboration

The new agreement aims to expand collaboration into new and exciting areas, including the adaptation and resilience of production systems and strategic crops, managing and expanding gene banks, scaling new digital innovations, and improving modeling and data analysis to reduce the impact of extreme weather events.

It also focuses on implementing solutions to meet nutritional needs.

“This new and expanded collaboration between CGIAR and Embrapa will be critical in accelerating work across our many shared priorities and delivering much-needed solutions to our farmers, consumers, and policymakers,” said Embrapa’s President, Silvia Massruhá.

Joint projects and knowledge exchange

Both institutions are committed to collaborating through knowledge exchange and joint projects, leveraging each other’s technical capacities and assets. This partnership is seen as a crucial step toward spurring much-needed reform of agri-food systems, curbing climate change, reducing biodiversity loss, and promoting inclusive growth for vulnerable groups, including smallholder farmers, women, and youth.

“As we address the critical task of shaping our portfolio and research programs for the next six years, this agreement provides inspiration,” Elouafi added.

“It serves as an example of how we can work with leading national research partners to pioneer solutions and how we can foster South-South collaboration to make sure those solutions are delivered at scale where they are needed most.”

Longstanding collaboration

This agreement builds on a longstanding relationship between the two institutions, which have participated in bilateral agreements since the 1970s with CGIAR Centers such as CIAT, CIP, and CIMMYT.

Together, they have made significant strides in improving environmental management in the Amazon basin, tackling agricultural climate risks, and advancing the development of forages and silvopasture.

Their collaborative efforts have also driven critical work on sweet potato and tropical wheat, seed banks, genetic resource preservation, and software development.

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