Nov 19, 2009
Embrapa To Build First Research Center In Mato Grosso
Author: Michael Cordonnier/Soybean & Corn Advisor, Inc.
Construction will begin today on the first Embrapa research center to be located in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso. The center will be built in the city of Sinop located 500 kilometers north of the capital of Cuiaba. Sinop is located in north-central Mato Grosso and is the largest city in the northern part of the state. The region is known for its diverse crop production as well as extensive cattle ranching.
The new research center will focus on all phases of agriculture. In the area of grain production, they will study soybeans, corn, rice, edible beans, sorghum, cotton, and manioc root. Livestock research will involve the production of beef, dairy, hogs, broilers, eggs, and fish farming. Permanent crops such as tree fruits and reforestation will also be studied.
The research center will employ 32 scientists and approximately 70 support personnel. The center will contain administrative offices, laboratories, an auditorium, a library, and 612 hectares of research plots (1,530 acres). Embrapa will also set up three satellite centers located in southern, eastern and western Mato Grosso. The hogs, poultry, and fish research will be located in the cities of Sorriso, Nova Mutum and Lucas do Rio Verde.
The Mato Grosso Research Center is the latest in a long line of research centers operated by Embrapa. They have established centers dedicated to each major crop in Brazil and for the various climatic regions of the country such as the cerrado in central Brazil, the semiarid regions of northeast Brazil, and the tropical climate of the Amazon Basin. Each center is dedicated to improving the agricultural production in its specific environment.
A research facility of this scope is long overdue for a state as large and as important as Mato Grosso. The state is as large as the Midwest (six times bigger than the state of Illinois) and it's the leading grain producing state as well as having the largest cattle herd in Brazil. In addition to research centers, Embrapa will also establish remote weather stations throughout the state, which is sorely needed. For many years, the only weather data available from the state was from several weather stations located in only the southern part of the state.