Brazilian scientists have jumped to 15th position worldwide in scientific production. With 19,428 articles published in 2007, the country, exceeding Switzerland and Sweden, now answers to 2.02% of total global scientific production. And the Brazilian area that was most prominent in the global studies was Agriculture, with 4,139 articles produced between 2003 and 2007, 4% of total global production.
Within the country, medicine is most prominent. In 2007, a total of 3,745 articles were published. In the balance of the last four years, of all the texts published, 71% were about neuroscience.
According o the Ministry of Education, among the Latin-American countries, Brazil is the most prominent. In second place comes Mexico, in the 28th position in the world, with 7,469 articles published in the same period, which answers to 0.78% of global production.
When territory (countries with over four million square kilometers), population (countries with over 100 million inhabitants) and economy (countries with GDPs over 400 million dollars) are considered, Brazil is in the fourth position, only behind Russia, the United States and China.
Giving the Poor a Chance
A report by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) shows the part played by three Brazilian companies in the inclusion of the poorest layers of the population into productive processes. According to the study, Natura, Sadia and VCP (Votorantim Celulose e Papel) have projects that help communities to produce raw material while generating income and helping the environment.
The economy's power to generate decent work depends, largely, on the private sector. And the private sector, as it supplies consumer goods and services, brings other chances of opportunities to the poor, according to the report. The study presents examples of business initiatives that managed to expand the access of the poor to consumer goods and also took them on in some phase of the productive process.
According to the report, these are ways of reducing poverty and helping reach the Millennium Development Goals (MDG)Â -Â a series of social and economic targets that the countries in the UN engaged to reach by 2015.
Milking
Brazil has 1.3 million producers of milk and 80% use manual milking. Aware of the needs of small and medium producers, the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation Dairy Cattle department has developed a milking kit made up of simple utensils, associated to a booklet of technical guidance regarding manual milking.
The bacterial count, one of the factors that determines the quality of the product, is usually high in this kind of milking. This is due to the incorrect procedures that cause deficient hygiene, both on the cow's teats and on the hands of the milker and of the objects used.
Studies developed in Brazilian states in which the kit is being used show that adequate procedure may reduce the bacteria count by 40% to 85%. Quality milk guarantees prices at least 10% greater for producers.
The whole kit costs around 150 Brazilian reais (US$ 93). The success of the initiative was so great that the idea is going to be exported to tropical countries like Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador. There is also a possibility of sending it to Angola and Uganda, in Africa, and India and Pakistan, in Asia.
Golden Peanut
Peanuts are the appetizer that Brazilians consume most with beer. But for many farmers from the interior of São Paulo, they are much more than that: they are a luxury article, raw material for fine biscuits in Europe and their main source of income.
Unshelled peanuts have never been so appreciated, and the price on the foreign market has reached US$ 1,700 a ton. Furthermore, production in the last harvest, 2007/2008, is the largest in recent times.
In the state of São Paulo, which answers to 80% of the Brazilian production, 70% of the cropland and 98% of exports, production this year should reach 200,000 tons. In the first quarter of the year alone, 5,400 tons of unshelled peanuts were exported.
Explosive Growth
Today, the Arab countries are the third main consumers of Brazilian food products. What attracts attention, on analyzing trade figures with the Arabs in the first half of the year, is that apart from traditional products in the agribusiness trade basket, like meats, other Brazilian products are also gaining space in that region of the world.
This is the case with eggs, dairy products and honey. In the first half of this year, sales of eggs to the Arabs registered growth of 551%, revenues generated totaled US$ 22.6 million. In the period, with imports of US$ 48 million, the Arab market has become the second most import destination for Brazilian dairy products.
The performance of exports of grain in this first quarter of the year was also impressive. With the shipment of 230,000 tons and revenues of US$ 68 million, grain has taken over the third position among the food products most exported to the Arab world.
The partnerships between Arabs and Brazilians are not just in the most common sectors like trade. Few people know, for example, that there are already joint-ventures between Brazilians and Arabs in cinema. Brazilian cinema director Ari Cândido, from the city of Londrina, worked on a production with Tunisian sponsorship in the 1980s.
It was the movie "Por que a Eritréia?" ("Why Eritrea?"), that received the People's Award at the 1984 São Paulo Cinema Exhibit. That is, Arabs and Brazilians had already met way before most people imagine.
The film by Cândido was produced in partnership with the Tunisian Mohamed Charbagi, and was sponsored by Tunisian state-owned production company Satpec. In June, Cândido won the "Toronto International Portuguese Film Festival", but for film "The Kid".
You may contact the author writing to joel.guimaraes@anba.com.br or joel@agenciameios.com.br.
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