Embrapa had to create the land, in a sense, or make it fit for farming.
Farmers have presided over a productivity revolution with the help of Embrapa, a government-funded research corporation.
It didn't, but Embrapa did receive enough money to turn itself into the world's leading tropical-research institution.
Good government policy can enable and Embrapa certainly has done that, but without the involvement of private enterprise success is rarely achieved.
Second, Embrapa went to Africa and brought back a grass called brachiaria.
While indeed farsighted, the generals' support for Embrapa was not that unusual.
When Embrapa started, the cerrado was regarded as unfit for farming.
Third, and most important, Embrapa turned soyabeans into a tropical crop.
Embrapa also created varieties of soya that are more tolerant than usual of acid soils (even after the vast application of lime, the cerrado is still somewhat acidic).
In fact, it was IRI president, the late Jerome Harrington, who drew up in 1971, the original blueprint for the string of commodity centres which is now Embrapa.
Lastly, Embrapa has pioneered and encouraged new operational farm techniques.
Embrapa scientists also bred varieties of rhizobium, a bacterium that helps fix nitrogen in legumes and which works especially well in the soil of the cerrado, reducing the need for fertilisers.
Embrapa's latest trick is something called forest, agriculture and livestock integration: the fields are used alternately for crops and livestock but threads of trees are also planted in between the fields, where cattle can forage.
Having spent years increasing production and acreage, Embrapa is now turning to ways of increasing the intensity of land use and of rotating crops and livestock so as to feed more people without cutting down the forest.
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