Africa-Brazil collaborate on cotton-technology exchange

14 Sep '12

2 min read

To facilitate technology transfer in the field of agriculture to aid cotton production in Africa, agricultural researchers from Africa and Brazil have entered into a new collaboration.

The partnership, which was made official in Brazil’s Brasilia during a meeting of researchers from Brazilian Agricultural Research Enterprise (Embrapa) and the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (Fara) last month, focuses on bolstering scientific cooperation between agricultural sectors of Brazil, Africa and other Latin American countries.

As members of the West and Central African Council for Agricultural Research and Development (Coraf/Wecard), a member of Fara, visited Brazil for the meeting during last month, they got a chance to learn about cotton research at Institute of Cotton (Imamt) in Brazil’s Mato Grosso state. Also, they got to interact with officials of the Brazilian Co-operation Agency (ABC), which made way for future collaborations.

During their visit, the African researchers identified three areas of cooperation with Imamt: assistance in the field of training researchers and technicians; exchange of plant material with Coraf; and capacity-enhancement for Brazilian researchers to help them enhance their drought adaptation capacity.

Though Embrapa has worked with other African nations and Fara previously, it is for the first time that it is working with Coraf.

Embrapa would participate in imparting training to researchers and technicians from Africa and also in crop variety exchanges.

The scientific collaboration, mainly focusing on defining the objectives and priorities of common research, would facilitate exchange of scientific information, and is thus believed to encourage agrarian reforms in African nations.

The climate in Brazil as well as in sub-Saharan Africa is almost the same, and hence Africa can benefit the most from Brazilian agriculture experience.

Brazilian researchers would also gain knowledge on the side of drought and climate-change adaptation from their African counterparts.

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