-
Africa and Brazil to share cotton know-how
September 12, 2012 Editor 0
From SciDev
[ABIDJAN] Researchers from Africa and Brazil’s agricultural sectors are establishing a new partnership to enable the transfer of agriculturaltechnologies, in support of cotton production in Africa.
The partnership aims to reinforce scientific cooperation between the agricultural sectors of Africa, Brazil and other Latin American countries.
The partnership was formalised in Brasilia, Brazil, last month (2–6 August), during a meeting that brought together researchers from the Brazilian Agricultural Research Enterprise (Embrapa) and the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA).
Embrapa will take part in the training of researchers and technicians from Africa, and also in exchanging crop varieties, according to Ousmane N’doye, programme manager for non-staple crops at the West and Central African Council for Agricultural Research and Development (CORAF/WECARD), a member of FARA.
N’Doye said it was the first time Embrapa had worked with CORAF, although it had previously worked with other African countries and with FARA.
CORAF/FARA’s visit to Brazil in August had been an opportunity to learn about cotton research in Mato Grosso state’s Institute of Cotton (IMAmt), and to interact with officials from the Brazilian Cooperation Agency (ABC), paving the way for future collaborations, N’Doye said.
As a result, researchers had identified three areas of collaboration with IMAmt: the exchange of plant material with CORAF/WECARD; support for the training of researchers and technicians; and capacity building for Brazilian researchers to assist them in improving drought adaptation capacity.
CORAF/WECARD’s director of programmes, Harold Roy-Macauley, said the Africa-Brazil partnership will enable the exchange of scientific information and was aimed, above all, at “defining the objectives and priorities of common research”.
Roy-Macauley said that Brazilian researchers will also benefit from their African colleagues’ expertise in the area of drought and climate change adaptation.
Kouakou Yao, a researcher at the University of Abobo Adjamé in Côte-d’Ivoire, welcomed the scientific partnership, saying it could boost the agrarian development of African countries.
“Brazil has roughly the same climate as Sub-Saharan Africa. We can, therefore, take real advantage of the Brazilian experience,” he told SciDev.Net.
Go to SourceRelated Posts
Chinese scientists successfully crack the genome of diploid cotton
Learning From Innovation Hubs: Fluidity, Serendipity, and Community Combined
SA advances hydrogen strategy with launch of new research centre
SA and Algeria to develop aeronautical research cooperation
Crop-infecting virus forces aphids to spread disease
Embraer, Boeing in biofuels cooperation deal
Categories: Agriculture, Science
Tags: Africa and Brazil, CORAF, cotton, hubs, know-how
RESOURCE CRITICALITY ASSESSMENT IN FUTURE ICT SCENARIOS African science initiative, RISE, likely to expand
Subscribe to our stories
Recent Posts
- In pictures: the 2019 Africa RISING Tanzania monitoring visit August 30, 2019
- Active Internationalization of Software Enterprises: Scale Development and Validation August 30, 2019
- The Manager’s Guide to Leveraging Disruption August 30, 2019
- Key take-aways from a recent Africa RISING exchange visit in Ghana August 30, 2019
- Device that recycles vaporized water from power plants wins MIT $100K May 28, 2019
Categories
Archives
Popular Post-All time
- A review on biomass-based... 693 views
- Prize-winning projects pr... 488 views
- Can blockchain disrupt ge... 472 views
- Test Your Value Propositi... 441 views
- Apply Now: $500,000 for Y... 390 views