THE AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH PUBLIC SECTOR OF THE SAO PAULO STATE - PART I -

Abstract

This text is the first part of an evaluation of the Sao Paulo State public sector efforts on agricultural research, taking in account the regional economic and social evolution during this century. As the central focus of analysis it is taken the Campinas Agronomic Institute, the main agricultural research center of Brazil. It is discussed its creation and its initial works, under the hegemonic power of the big land owners of that time. As a second section, we examine its strengthening during the thirties, with its research labor linked to the agricultural polyculture of the São Paulo State, reinforced by the textil and food industries and urban growing centers. The third part explores the after war period and the Agronomic Institute transformation during the fifties, with its research orientation towards the agricultural modernization based upon industrial inputs; and, as a last part, it is evaluated the crisis this institute has been involved since the sixties. The second part of this work - to be published at vol. 3, nº 2, Cadernos de Difusão de Tecnologia - will cover the present situation of the Campinas Agronomic Institute and other institutions: the São Paulo Biological Institute and the Luiz de Queiroz Agronomic School. At the conclusions it is evaluated the global impact on the São Paulo State agricultural research system due to the EMBRAPA constitution, and some alternative strategies are suggested.