Recognized for its decisive role in the development of Brazilian agriculture for almost 50 years, Embrapa (Empresa Brasileira de Pesquisa Agropecuária) is experiencing an identity crisis.
The internal controversy erupted when the current management took off the paper an administrative restructuring project, aggravating a wear that had already been occurring for some time.
On the one hand, officials — especially researchers, who occupy 2,200 posts out of a staff of 8,000 people — say they are dissatisfied with what they see as excessive bureaucratic control and poor conditions for research itself.
On the other hand, management criticizes what it understands as an excess of administrative personnel and overlapping functions. Therefore, it wants to accelerate retirements, and does not rule out a plan of incentivized layoffs.
In addition to the administrative conflict, Embrapa is also experiencing another of a more existential nature. Some defend a closer approach to the market, through indirect equity stakes — the position of the president of the state-owned company, Celso Moretti, who has been with the company for more than 30 years.
Others defend the continuity of the current model, which privileges royalty contracts to obtain income with the innovations that reach the shelves of agricultural houses – with which, according to Moretti, Embrapa would be failing to earn.
According to the state-owned company, the estimated value of its contribution to national agriculture in 2020 was BRL 62 billion and 41,000 jobs — an impact much greater than its annual budget, of around BRL 3.4 billion in the year. same year.
Some examples of this contribution in recent decades are biological nitrogen fixation, climate risk zoning, genetic improvement of herds and the development of pastures more adapted to the country’s soils and climates. To these innovations are added countless varieties developed by its researchers.
Most of this work is done at the state-owned company’s 43 decentralized units. For those who work on the cutting edge, the distance between their activities and the headquarters in Brasília is very large.
The solution presented by the management, but criticized by employees, is the reform, which would make management more efficient and provide greater agility in decision-making, in addition to opening the way for greater approximation with private companies.
If it goes as planned by Moretti, the change would represent annual savings of R$ 222 million — equivalent to about 7% of Embrapa’s annual budget.
About 92% of this reduction, however, will result from mandatory retirements of employees aged 75 years, which still depends on a court decision. In the first instance, the Federal Court authorized employees in this age group – currently 83 – to remain on active duty.
“This is being worked on, and we believe it will be reversed. But it must be made clear that there will be no layoffs”, says Moretti, who says he is studying the holding of a competition to hire researchers, which has not happened since 2010.
“Our perception, supported by the work of Falconi [consultoria contratada para orientar o plano de reformulação]is that Embrapa has a very vertical structure”, he evaluates.
The proposed changes create one more executive board, totaling four, and eliminate the five secretariats that answer to these boards, currently functioning as superintendencies. For the president of Embrapa, the administrative area currently has twice as many employees as it needs.
The project displeased Sinpaf (National Union of Agricultural Research and Development Workers), which includes around 5,000 Embrapa employees, including researchers, analysts, technicians and assistants, says union president Marcus Vinicius Vidal.
He considers that there has been little discussion with employees at the bottom of the pyramid about the renovation, and that there is a lack of transparency regarding the details of the restructuring project, which, in his opinion, should be produced internally, not through a contracted consultancy.
“They didn’t give us full access to the study, they just showed us topics on slides. It’s okay that it’s necessary to reduce bureaucracy and excess of positions, but not in this way. A savings of R$ 200 million or R$ 300 million in a period of 12 years is not significant. The focus should be more public resources for the company’s budget”, he says.
“In the document that the president of Embrapa presented [com o projeto de reestruturação]the word researcher does not appear”, says Eduardo Assad, a researcher at Embrapa for 35 years, recognized for his work on the effects of climate change on agricultural production.
According to him, researchers have complained about the bureaucratic structure that was set up, the type of monitoring carried out and, above all, the great distance between the boards and the units.
“A bureaucratic monster has been set up that discourages everyone. And this is not new, researchers have been complaining about it for a long time. They are closed, plastered control systems”, adds Assad, who has already headed two units (Cerrado and Digital Agriculture).
Former Minister of Agriculture (Lula government), former chairman of the Board of Directors of Embrapa and former executive secretary of the ministry, Luís Carlos Guedes Pinto considers that the current management lacks the ability to mobilize the technical staff.
Following the company since its prehistory, literally at the beginning of 1972, he saw up close the work group formed by just two people to elaborate what would become the embryo of Embrapa.
“I make a point of highlighting this point because everyone thinks that things started with Embrapa, but no, there was a very important structure in the Ministry of Agriculture before Embrapa”, he says, referring to the initiative of a department of the ministry together with an initial network of 12 research institutes and about a thousand researchers, which resulted in the creation of the state-owned company.
Among those affected by Embrapa’s work, there is also division. On the one hand, Luiz Zarref, one of the coordinators of the MST (Landless Rural Workers Movement), agrees with the union’s criticism. He also states that Embrapa should be maintained exclusively with public resources.
“Embrapa’s role is to carry out research, it has no obligation to make a profit”, says Zarref.
Consultant José Carlos Hausknecht, from MB Associados, considers the orientation to be positive for expanding ties with the business sector.
“Embrapa does not have this vocation to go out and seek the market, despite seeking partnerships in some products. Before, it seems that there was prejudice in doing things like this, but apparently this has improved”, he says.
He says that in recent decades the company has lost relevance in comparison with the private sector – also due to the latter, which has invested in applied research, mainly in corn, soybeans, sugarcane and coffee.
“But Embrapa is still very important in basic research, which does not attract capital. This is the case of research on pastures, research on microorganisms, bio-inputs, niches that also have startups”, says Hausknecht.
For the president of SRB (Sociedade Rural Brasileira), Teresa Vendramini, Embrapa has still been the engine of Brazilian agribusiness.
“The success of Brazilian agribusiness is due to Embrapa’s research and science, which expanded our knowledge of the soil, the climate and agricultural techniques that made it possible to increase the productivity of agriculture and livestock,” he told Sheetby email.
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