The United States and Brazil are world leaders in agricultural research, and their collaboration over the last several decades has been a cornerstone of the close relationship between the two countries. Strengthening this relationship by expanding collaborative research will be critical as the world faces the existential threat of climate change and food insecurity. To meet this challenge, scientists from the United States and Brazil are developing a fertilizer-use efficiency research initiative that will be launched at the 50th anniversary celebration of Embrapa (Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation) on April 26, 2023.
Until the 1970s, Brazil was a food-insecure country that had to import most of its food. However, in less than 30 years Brazil transformed itself into an agricultural powerhouse, going from a net importer of food into one the world’s leading exporters. Brazil is today among the top five producers of thirty-six agricultural products. It is also the leading exporter of soybeans, corn, coffee, sugar, beef, poultry, coffee, and orange juice. The country’s tremendous increase in agricultural production is known as Brazil’s Green Revolution and is widely considered one of the most important world developments of the second half of the 20th century.
Brazil’s abundant supply of land and rich endowment of natural resources, the country’s political commitment to a modern agricultural sector, the entrepreneurial spirit of Brazilian producers, and advanced agricultural research were key elements for this transformation. In addition, countries such as Japan were an important contributor in helping Brazil modernize its agriculture. For example, in the 1970s and 1980s the Japanese-Brazilian Cooperation Program for Cerrado Development (PRODECER) developed agricultural technologies in the Cerrado savanna that helped transform the region into an agricultural powerhouse (Ekman and Macamo, 2014). Notably, the United States, through technical assistance and scientific collaboration, also played a vital role in Brazil’s agricultural development.
Today, the United States and Brazil feed around 25 percent of the world’s population. Without these two countries’ production, the world’s food supply would be critically low for a growing population. The United States and Brazil are also world leaders in agricultural research and the collaboration over the last several decades has been a cornerstone of their close relationship. In the coming decades, strengthening this relationship by expanding collaborative research will be critical as the world faces the existential threat of climate change and food insecurity.
Current Project
The United States and Brazil are leading the way with an innovative research project on fertilizer. Over the last year, scientists from the United States and Brazil have been developing a fertilizer-use efficiency research initiative in response to the global fertilizer crisis. This research program highlights the vital collaboration between Embrapa, USDA’s ARS and the Foreign Agricultural Service, the University of Florida, and the International Fertilizer Development Center.
The partnership will greatly strengthen U.S.-Brazilian ties in fighting climate change and food insecurity. The joint research initiative will also lead to outcomes that go far beyond Brazil and the United States to the developing world to improve fertilizer use efficiency that will lessen the world’s dependence on imported fertilizer, advance global food security, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But this research on fertilizer efficiency should only be the beginning of increased collaboration between the United States and Brazil as the world tackles the existential threat of climate change and global food insecurity.
Source: USDA