Competences in plant breeding in Brazil

Abstract

-The Plant Breeding Brazilian Association (SBMP, in Portuguese) and the Center for Strategic Studies and Management in Science, Technology and Innovation (CGEE, in Portuguese) The third chapter of the book Competences in genetic plant breeding in Brazil (Ramalho et al. 2010), presents the results of the assessment on the current status of the competences in the area of plant breeding in Brazil during the last two years. This work was conducted via electronic consultation to the list of SBMP associated members, the participants of the Plant Breeding Brazilian Meetings and to other unlisted breeders. The dissemination of the results of this survey aims to make available the names of the current plant breeders to the scientific community in Brazil, as well as their academic qualification, research area, species/products studied, and other relevant information. The data of this assessment are presented so as not to repeat information on the academic qualification of plant breeders in Brazil and their private enterprise profile, topics that will be addressed by other speakers of this panel.Of 3,299 scientists consulted, 689 who replied to the questionnaire, worked for 178 private and public institutions. Most of the professionals who did not reply worked for private institutions.The 178 institutions cited were classified by the participants as: Governmental, Other Governmental Institution, Enterprise, or Public Research Institution, Public Institution of Higher Education, Private Institution of Higher Education, Association, Co-operative, Private Enterprise, and Non-Governmental Organization. The majority (86.6 %) of the professionals were involved with plant breeding programs at public institutions. The highest concentration of professionals was found in Public Research Institutions (39.4 %) and Universities (44.6 %).An even distribution was found in the academic qualification (undergraduate, Master's and Doctorate levels) of the responding participants and, as expected, there is a predominance of agronomists (74.1 %) with a graduate degree (49.3 % with a Master's, and 44.3 % with a doctorate) in plant breeding.With respect to the nature of the activity (research, teaching, rural extension and consultancy), the highest plant breeding production is found to be concentrated in research and teaching. Two hundred and fourteen professionals, corresponding to 31 % of all the participants, are exclusively involved in research.The largest number of respondents declared to be involved on the following areas: Plant breeding programs,