The Minister of Agriculture, Carlos Fávaro, said in a personal Instagram account that he will nominate researcher Silvia Massruhá for the presidency of the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa). It will be the first time that a woman occupies the position.
According to Fávaro, Silvia “fulfills all the requirements” to assume the position. Born in Passos (MG), she has been at Embrapa since 1989. She holds a degree in Systems Analysis from the Pontifical Catholic University of Campinas, a master’s degree in automation from the Faculty of Electrical and Computing Engineering at the State University of Campinas (Unicamp), and holds a PhD in Applied Computing from the National Institute for Space Research (Inpe).
Silvia has been ahead of Embrapa Agricultura Digital since September 2021. There, she leads projects in the area of software engineering, artificial intelligence and scientific computing applied to agriculture. According to data published on the Embrapa website, the sector it directs is responsible for approximately 100 technical-scientific publications and 25 software on the themes of abductive logic, fuzzy logic, machine learning techniques, data mining and texts focused on animal handling and diagnosis of plant diseases.
Partnership with Angola
Carlos Fávaro also announced on social networks that he had met with the Angolan Minister of Foreign Affairs, Tete Antonio, to establish dialogues and commercial partnerships. The Minister of Agriculture said that Embrapa can contribute with agricultural production technologies and the development of public policies in the African country. He cited rural insurance as an example. Data brought by Fávaro himself indicate that agricultural activity in Angola is predominantly family-based. It has 2,370,757 rural producers, of which 5,877 are business holdings and 2,364,880 are family farms.
