EMBRAPA researchers set up the first Brazilian Near-Infrared Network

EMBRAPA (Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation) is the big Brazilian governmental enterprise dedicated to the development of national agriculture and agribusiness. In the year 2011, a group professionals from 18 units of the corporation, spread allover the country, and coordinated by Dr. Maria LĂșcia Simeone from the EMBRAPA Maize and Sorghum unit, have started up a Near-Infrared Network to exchange experiences and improve backgrounds on the technology. The network has the financial support from EMBRAPA headquarter and promoted three annual nationwide workshops. After the network have been started, a significant increase in the number and quality of the actions developed based on NIR spectroscopy applied to solve Brazilian agribusiness problems, has become evident by the works presented in the workshops. Passing three years, after a very positive balance of the actions carried out since the beginning of the network, the EMBRAPA NIR Network is consolidated, and their researchers are preparing a new proposal to strength the extend the network actions for longer time.