Occupying almost half the area of South America and ranking fifth in world population, Brazil can play a significant role in promoting biofortification in the region.

EMBRAPA (the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation) coordinates the Brazilian national agricultural research system which includes most public and private entities involved in agricultural research in the country.

HarvestPlus and EMBRAPA have enjoyed a close working relationship from the start. HarvestPlus provided seed money to EMBRAPA, which has then gone on to raise its own funds for biofortification research.

EMBRAPA’s conducts research on most crops in the HarvestPlus portfolio as well as some important in many Latin American countries such as pumpkin and cowpea. In only a few years, EMBRAPA has released high-provitamin A cassava, and high-iron and high-zinc varieties of common beans, rice and cow peas.

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