Project portfolio
Environmental Services
Agricultural production and sustainability: a necessary and timely path
This portfolio aims to ensure the many environmental services and biodiversity conservation in agricultural and forestry production systems in the rural, peri-urban and urban areas of Brazil
What are environmental services?
Plants, animals, microorganisms, and their interactions with the physical environment present biological functions that can be translated as ecosystemic services when they benefit human beings. This thematic approach is increasingly present in society due to the growing perception that humanity and nature are intimately and interdependently connected, and that the offer of services for the natural environment is fundamental for the quality of life.
Meanwhile environmental services derive from human actions that contribute to the maintenance and recovery of ecosystem services. Human beings can provide environmental services through soil and water conservationist practices, but they cannot provide ecosystemic services (such as climate regulation), which depend only on the functionality of the ecosystem.
Agriculture needs to be sustainably developed so as not to compromise ecosystemic services, such as pure air, milder temperatures, elevated potential to stock carbon in the soil and in forests, clean water, and genetic, timber and food resources, which drive several economic sectors. Science has developed methodologies to inform the decisions of farmers, managers, and other users of natural resources, besides supporting the political-economic instruments that encourage conservationist practices.
Download the folder for the portfolio as a PDF file in Portuguese
Innovation challenges
There are demands and gaps regarding environmental services that need to be fulfilled in order to achieve efficiency and sustainability in the agricultural and forestal sectors, and in which research can help. Nowadays, some priority challenges from the RD&I that involves the subject within Embrapa's scope are:
- To value and quantify the environmental services provided by sustainable agricultural and forestry production systems that make economic-financial compensation mechanisms feasible;
- To expand the certification of rural properties with multifunctional production systems that ensure the provision of environmental services;
- To expand the provision of pollinator environmental services for agriculture;
- To consolidate rural tourism, and cultural and landscape aspects as a way of adding value and income to agricultural family products;
- To structure integrated digital platforms for space-time data on biodiversity and environmental services;
- To value the Environmental Services generated by the sustainable management of flora and fauna practiced by traditional peoples;
- To enable the insertion of environmental services provided by the production systems of the main agricultural commodities to the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA)
- To enable the multifunctionality of the landscape by expanding environmental services in areas of agricultural and forestry production
Portfolio Management Committee
The Portfolio Management Committee works to define innovation challenges and oversee the portfolio of projects.
Chairperson:
- Fábia de Mello Pereira
- Embrapa Mid-North
Executive secretary:
- André Luiz dos Santos Furtado
- Embrapa Territorial
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.
Access the web page for the Business and Technology Showcase