Module 2 - Brazil: Spill-ins from Foreign Research and Development Laboratories

Brazil’s agricultural sector has been an important source of economic growth. Today the sector faces the multiple challenges of increasing productivity while addressing pressing poverty, unbalanced regional growth, and natural resource constraints. Agricultural research is important for increasing productivity and reducing rural poverty.

Brazil has a broad agricultural research system. In the mid-1990s, the national research agency (Embrapa, the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation) had 2,064 researchers and an extensive infrastructure. State (provincial) research systems had an additional 2,395 researchers, and university teaching and research faculty numbered over 4,000. This capacity was underutilized, however, and adequate operating funding and linkages between institutions were lacking. As in many other developing countries, the need to include private sector research, to increase competition, and to make research demand-driven and responsive to farmer needs was recognized. There was a need to strengthen domestic capacity by capitalizing on research resources outside the public sector and by encouraging technology and scientific spill-ins (or activities) from advanced research institutes.

Project Objectives and Description

In 1997, the Agricultural Technology Development Project led by Embrapa was initiated to increase the efficiency and sustainability of resources in the Brazilian agricultural research system. This goal was to be accomplished in four ways, by: stimulating development of a more integrated and diversified national agricultural research system, with greater participation of the private sector; increasing the role of clients in defining research and technology transfer priorities; refocusing public sector research on public goods, such as research on family farms, natural resource management, and upstream technology activities not attractive to the private sector; helping Embrapa to address issues of decentralization and diversification of the research system; and facilitating increased scientific spill-ins from advanced research institutes.

Nearly two-thirds of project funding allocated to a CRGP acted as a catalyst for the long-term transition of the research system toward a diversified system of agricultural research and technology transfer. A committee with representatives from various public, civic, and private stakeholders, including farmer groups, selects the best research proposals.

A companion institutional capacity-building program aims to increase the capacity of institutions to bid for grants. It includes support for research management improvements, training, special studies, public-private partnerships, and international collaborative research programs. The international collaborative linkages program includes a virtual external program for “Embrapa’s Foreign R&D Lab,” referred to as LABEX.