Brazil to boost food security cooperation with 55 African countries

The Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa), the Brazilian Cooperation Agency (ABC), and the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) will finance the arrival of African agricultural researchers in Brazil.

On Wednesday (Mar. 19), representatives from the three institutions signed a letter of intent to promote technical cooperation between Brazil and 55 African countries with a focus on food security.

Details are yet to be defined, but the institutions have already disclosed that at least 30 researchers from scientific institutes, universities, and government bodies should be involved.

Three areas of research will be covered—regenerative agriculture, as a way of preserving natural resources and making production more sustainable; food and nutritional security, to guarantee people’s access to healthy food; and resilience and recovery of degraded areas, vital for the sustainability of agricultural production.

Pakistani scientist Rattan Lal, professor emeritus at Ohio University, winner of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize and the 2020 World Food Prize. – Marcelo Camargo / Agência Brasil

Seminar

The letter of intent was signed during the seminar Africa–Brazil Dialogue on Research, Development, and Innovation in Agriculture and Livestock, held at Embrapa’s Brasília headquarters.

The meeting was attended by representatives of the Brazilian government, ambassadors from African nations, members of cooperation and research institutions and Pakistani scientist Rattan Lal, professor emeritus at Ohio University, winner of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize and the 2020 World Food Prize. During the event, he spoke about the challenges and opportunities of agricultural production on the African continent.

Meeting of ministers

The seminar came as a preparatory event for the meeting that will bring African agriculture ministers to Brasília in May this year to discuss ways of boosting agricultural productivity on the continent.

“We’re going to hold a meeting to show what’s good about Brazil, bring [the African ministers] to the countryside to see what’s going on, and then hold a technical meeting coordinated by Embrapa and the Ministry of Foreign Relations, so we can share a bit of knowledge to our African partners and make sure we can really fight hunger,” President Lula said as he announced the meeting.

Africa

Despite concentrating almost 65 percent of non-cultivated arable land and some 10 percent of the planet’s renewable water resources, the African countries still import a large part of the food that supplies the local population.

According to the African Development Bank, the agricultural sector employs more than 60 percent of the workforce and accounts for around a third of the continent’s GDP. Even so, Africa is the most food-insecure region in the world.