The website of the Arab Brazil Chamber of Commerce has a long, fascinating interview with Silvio Crestana, president of EMBRAPA, the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation. Having set up shop in Ghana, EMBRAPA is now thinking of doing something similar in Morocco and Qatar. It is great that the considerable expertise of Brazilian agricultural scientists is going to be shared more widely with the rest of the world. But benefits — including agricultural biodiversity — are expected to flow both ways. Here’s a selection of quotes to give you the flavour:
The whole world will be experiencing … confusions caused by climate change, and if we manage to obtain a plant with a gene that is more tolerant to drought, it will attract a lot of interest.
…
They are well developed in goat raising. They have goats that give birth to three lambs (usually they give birth to a single lamb). This is of great interest to Brazil, to our goat raising centres, which are located in the Northeast. This race is of interest to Brazil. There could be a transfer from there to here.
…
Another field of interest is olives, olive trees. They are way ahead of us in that field, and the demand for those is growing in Brazil… It is an ideal field for us to cooperate, they have research, they cultivate many different varieties, they have an amazing variety of olives, small, large, of all sizes and features, for oil, edible ones.
…
They also have varieties and research on wheat. They have a very interesting variety of wheat that we are interested in for hybridisations, germplasm banks.
…
Our germplasm bank, from the vantage point of tropical biodiversity, is like no other. They would benefit from that.