Following Brazil’s success in agricultural innovations and its geophysical similarities with the African continent, the World Bank is spearheading efforts to enable the South American state to help promote agricultural development in Africa.
Through the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (EMBRAPA) that has provided feasible solutions for sustainable development to Brazilian agribusiness, experts say Brazil can be highly effective in supporting African nations in their efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
The World Bank on Tuesday organised a video conference for some African countries including Ghana, Liberia, South Africa, Tanzania, Kenya and Zambia to present experience of the Brazilian corporations in agriculture, social protection, vocational and technical training. The conference papers were presented from Washington DC in US to participants in their respective countries.
Brazilian technology is said to be easily adaptable to many African countries because of geophysical similarities in soil and climate.
Andre Nepomuceno Dusi, Structuring Projects Coordinator of Brazilian EMBRAPA pledged the Brazilian government’s commitment to help develop the agricultural capacity of African countries, especially those in the Sub-Saharan region.
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EMBRAPA, an offshoot of Brazilian Ministry of Agriculture, was established in 1973 to turn around Brazil’s agricultural production. The country currently has 12 million people involved in subsistence farming, cultivating 106.8 million hectares of land, with cassava being the highest on the list of food items produced.
Dusi cited the provision of adequate infrastructure as the main issue that helped turn around Brazil’s agricultural production.
EMBRAPA, he said, has developed a strong staff qualification system and developed cutting edge technologies in agriculture which had helped boost Brazil’s agricultural output. The corporation has over 9,000 employees with 2,400 of them being researchers.
It is involved in the selling of agricultural products and seeds, licensing of technologies and providing support to Brazilian agricultural companies abroad.
Another Bralian corporation, which is operational in over 31 countries with 54 international partnerships, is the National Industrial Apprenticeship Service (SENAI) involves in the delivery of technical and vocational skills.
In 2006, the First Africa-South America Summit was held in Abuja, Nigeria.
The idea of a stronger Africa-Brazil linkage, has been further reinforced by the increase in number of missions from Africa to Brazil, specifically to EMBRAPA, in recent years and by the Brazilian government’s commitment to supporting collaborative partnerships between Brazilian and African institutions in different countries including the opening of an Embrapa office in Africa.
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