Project Portfolio

Coping with Droughts in the Brazilian Semiarid region

Generating technological solutions and innovation to promote agricultural sustainability and competitiveness in the region

The Semiarid region is heavily characterized by droughts, a natural and recurrent weather phenomenon that has a major impact on agricultural production systems and on the population’s life. Developing Research, Development and Innovation strategies to solve problems that arise from water scarcity is the biggest challenge for that region, where about 22 million Brazilians live, distributed across 1,262 municipalities from the Northeast's nine states and the north of Minas Gerais.  

Threats are opportunities

The coexistence with droughts and semiarid environments should be viewed through the lens of regional development, aiming to increase sustainable production in favor of the welfare of its population. 

However, from the perspective of climate change, which may intensify the scenario of water shortage in all regions of Brazil, technologies that are developed for coping with droughts are of great relevance not only to the Semiarid region, but also to the other regions of the country, since they can be adapted.

The richness of biodiversity found in the region also has a high potential to reposition the Semiarid's agricultural systems in levels of sustainability, increasing their contribution to national agriculture competitiveness.

Coexisting with the drought phenomenon, transforming threats into opportunities, is the biggest challenge of the Coping with Droughts portfolio. Its main goal is to contribute to improving quality of life by implementing innovative solutions to monitor, alleviate and mitigate the  effects of droughts on the productivity and sustainability of agriculture, valuing and conserving the potential of natural resources.

Innovation Challenges

In line with its Master Plan 2020-2030 and with the Sustainable Development Goals established in the 2030 Agenda by the UN, Embrapa has organized its research, development and innovation projects into portfolios. The Coping with Droughts in the Brazilian Semiarid region portfolio presents the following innovation challenges:

  • Increasing the ability of native semiarid pastures to withstand trampling and traffic of goat, sheep and cattle herds 
  • Providing water in quantity and quality during drought periods in the Semiarid region for water supply and supplementation in agricultural production systems  
  • Structuring and expanding the use of integrated agricultural production systems that have been adapted to regional specificities of the Semiarid region 
  • Structuring digital systems and platforms to assist the management of family farms in the Semiarid region 
  • Indicating suitable areas and establishing edaphoclimatic risk levels for agricultural production in the Brazilian Semiarid region
  • Integrating in situ water harvesting technologies, saltwater use and domestic water reuse for life-saving irrigation and in the production of food and forage crops in the Semiarid region 
  • Improving the technical performance of poultry farming and goat, sheep and cattle herds in farming systems in the Semiarid region  agropecuários no Semiárido 
  • Implementing food and forage crops that are tolerant to water, thermal and salt stress in the Semiarid region's farming systems 
  • Enabling the use of solar and wind energy for the production of food and forage crops in family farms in the Semiarid region  
  • Implementing fruit species, forage crop, annual crop and fiber production systems in agricultural areas with water deficit, sandy and low natural fertility soils in the Northeast Region

Portfolio Management Committee

The Portfolio Management Committee works to define innovation challenges and oversee the portfolio of projects.
 

Chairperson:

 

Secretária executiva:

Partnerships and business

Embrapa's Innovation Model focuses on open innovation, which relies on partnerships since the beginning of each project for the sake of the market insertion of new assets. Find out how to jointly invent with Embrapa technological solutions that add value to business and enable innovation in the agricultural production sector.

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