The institutional design of the Brazilian system of agricultural research

Abstract

The objective of this study was to present the main opportunities and challenges of the Brazilian agricultural research system, highlighting the institutional arrangement produced since the 1970s, based on qualitative and quantitative data. This effort was justified by the scarcity of descriptive analysis on innovation systems of agriculture in Brazil, and by the importance of the topic for economic and social progress. To this end, an extensive bibliographic searching and data collection related to organizations that promote technical and scientific development of the sector were carried out, with special emphasis on Embrapa. The analysis shows that the initial project formulated for the agricultural research sector in the 1970s has not been implemented yet, and that the current institutional design is not capable of: integrating and coordinating public organizations of agricultural R&D; assimilating technological diffusion as part of a continuous innovation process; and incorporating private agents into the national innovation system. In addition, Embrapa lacks the system’s coordination instruments and, over time, it has been lost its ability to finance agricultural scientific development. There are legislative initiatives that face part of the mentioned problems; however, such propositions still need to be improved.