Key Trends

• In 2006, Brazil employed 5,400 fte agricultural researchers, more than any other country in Latin America.
• Brazil operates a two-tier system of federal- and state-based government agencies. As a semiautonomous federal agency, Embrapa is the largest agricultural R&D agency in Latin America in terms of both staff number and expenditures.
• In addition, 16 of Brazil's 26 states operate agricultural research agencies, although most state-level activities are carried out in São Paulo. Brazil also has a substantial number of (mostly federal and state) universities that conduct research at more than 100 faculties or schools of agricultural sciences.
• In 2006, 64 percent of the combined research staff employed at Embrapa and APTA were trained to the PhD level.
• Brazil spent $1.2 billion (in 2005 PPP prices) on agricultural R&D, or 1.68 percent of the country's agricultural GDP.
• Agricultural R&D in Brazil is largely government-funded. Other sources of funding, including internally generated resources, have increased in recent years but still represent a small share of total agricultural R&D funding in Brazil.

Brazil

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