Embrapa and the construction of scientific heritage in Brazilian agriculture: Sowing memory

Motivation The Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation, Embrapa, is well known for incorporating the Cerrado into Brazil’s modern agriculture through its discoveries of how to improve infertile soils and to develop soybean seeds adapted to the tropics. Known as the Tropical Revolution, Brazil’s own Green Revolution, this past episode continues to define Embrapa’s identity and Brazil’s agricultural science and technology, reinforcing a view of agricultural development while neglecting alternatives. Purpose This article seeks to understand how Embrapa has carved its name in Brazil’s agricultural history, creating a powerful national brand with global recognition. It explores what constitutes Embrapa’s “organizational heritage,” how this has been built within the organization and to what effect. Approach and methods To commemorate Embrapa’s 40th anniversary in 2014, an official history (“Memória Embrapa”) was written, focusing on the success of the organization and the reasons for this. This source has been reviewed, then combined with evidence from interviews with 29 Embrapa researchers about the strengths and shortcomings of organizational heritage. Findings Embrapa’s story of success focuses on selected technological breakthroughs, highly trained and motivated scientists, and a sense of mission towards Brazilian society. This omits, however, some successes, challenges and alternative approaches to research that do not fit well with the simplified history. Three such omissions stand out: (1) the official history barely mentions the concerns about the environmental and social impacts of the spread of large‐scale farming—which much of Embrapa’s research had served; (2) Embrapa created a national seed bank, to which indigenous groups demanded access since they had conserved much of the genetic material in the bank (policy was changed to allow indigenous groups access and to promote a dialogue between the scientists and the farmers); and (3), in similar vein, some scientists in Embrapa endeavour to engage with local expertise, with ethnoscience, to enrich and broaden the research. Policy implications Rooting Embrapa’s brand in history makes the narrative persistent and hard to challenge. This risks creating a simplified, monolithic narrative about Embrapa and Brazilian agriculture that feeds technocratic fixations with high science and transfer of technology as the dominant pathway to agricultural development and food security. This may have been considered necessary in the 1970s, but increasingly the agricultural research agenda must include environmental sustainability and conservation of agricultural biodiversity, climate change, social fairness and a respectful engagement with different ways of researching, including learning from the longstanding practices of farmers.