Fapespa leads Swiss-Brazilian innovation program workshop for the bioeconomy

Together with Swissnex in Brazil, the Fundação Amazônia de Amparo a Estudos e Pesquisas (Fapespa) led the Co-creation Workshop for the nexBio Amazônia Project, which is part of the Swiss-Brazilian Innovation Program for the Bioeconomy. The meeting, held in Belém, on Tuesday (7), brought together representatives from the public and private sectors, academia and organized civil society to discuss challenges and proposals for the area of ​​biodiversity and bioeconomy in the Amazon region.

Swissnex is the Swiss Confederation’s global network that seeks to connect partners, projects and initiatives in education, research and innovation. With the support of Fapespa, Swissnex in Brazil intends to launch a call for proposals involving Swiss and Brazilian startups, whose main objective is to implement practical and quickly executed solutions that increase the sustainability of production chains already existing in the Amazon.

More than 20 institutions were invited to the workshop, including the Paraense Emílio Goeldi Museum, the Secretariat of Science, Technology and Higher, Professional and Technological Education (Sectet), Peabiru Institute, Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa), the Oswaldo Foundation Cruz (Fiocruz), the State Secretariat for the Environment and Sustainability (Semas) and the State University of Pará (Uepa).

Divided into three blocks, the meeting listed production chains with the greatest potential and impact for a sustainable transition, the processes, the main technologies to address bottlenecks in each of them and, finally, relevant organizations, funding opportunities, researchers from the area and implementation challenges.

Among the production chains presented, cocoa and cupuaçu stood out and received the most attention, with a focus on plant health; non-timber forest products (community forest management); oils and fish, with an emphasis on piramutaba fishing – the sticky production chain, which would need to be formalized.

“I was curious to know how this discussion would be conducted and I really liked it. I hope that feedback will be given on the results of what happened in the workshop and from then on there can be socialization, covering other institutions that were not present, such as more traditional communities, since the bioeconomy, in theory, is for them”, he assesses. Milton Kanashiro, researcher at Embrapa.

“I saw various sectors of the university and those who work with production chains. Several ideas and proposals were brought together to improve the bioeconomy in the Amazon. I hope that a good notice comes out with resources that can generate more wealth in Amazon communities, adding more value to our products”, said Jofre Freitas, pro-rector of research and postgraduate studies at Uepa.

After the workshop, the results of the discussion were presented, with the presence of the Swiss ambassador to Brazil, Pietro Lazzeri, and the director-president of the Amazon Foundation for Studies and Research (Fapespa), Marcel Botelho.

“To create a notice like nexBio Amazônia, much more is needed than informing society. The process has to be collaborative, with the presence of the academic community, businesspeople, civil society, and the population, who need to be an integral part of the proposal to be constructed. The Government of Pará has increasingly sought this effective participation of society. Governor Helder values ​​this and always encourages us in this direction. The empowerment of society is fundamental to building good research incentives in our state”, analyzes Marcel Botelho.