BRAZIL-SCIENCE: Recognition Sought for Redoubtable Researcher

By Mario Osava Reprint | | Print |

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Sep 28 1996 (IPS) - A woman whose efforts expanded the horizons of Brazilian science through landmark discoveries and diligent research, is being proposed for the Nobel Prize for Chemistry.

A group of scientists have collected signatures to nominate Johanna Dobereiner, the Czech-born agriculture and agro- biological researcher, who has lived in Brazil since 1950, as a candidate for the Prize. They say her body of work merits the distinction.

Dobereiner is the “soul” of the National Center for Agro- Biological Research in Seropdica near Rio de Janeiro. Her research helped make Brazil the second largest producer of soya — superseded only by the United States — and at exceptionally low costs, and without damaging the environment.

Her research was into bacteria that live in roots, collect nitrogen from the air, feed plants and enrich the soil.

Dobereiner obtained a degree in Agronomy in Germany before migrating to Brazil. She remains active at age 71. Her father, a chemist, was imprisoned in Germany by the Nazis during World War II for having assisted Jews. Recently she had another personal tragedy: one of her sons was killed by assailants in Rio de Janeiro.

As a result of the work of Dobereiner and her colleagues practically all soya seeds are inoculated with a bacteria identified as efficient for soil and climate. That has enabled Brazil to become the first country to eliminate the need for nitrogen fertilizers in the cultivation of soya.

The Brazilian magazine Veja, which published a profile of Dobereiner in August, noted that the technique she developed saved the country 1.5 billion dollars annually — a total of 30 billion dollars since the 1960s.

In an interview with IPS, the scientist said that she had heard even greater estimates, of up to 2.4 billion dollars a year.

Flavio Moscardi, a scientist at the National Center for Soya Research, said the cost reduction was indeed significant as more than 11 million hectares of soya no longer required nitrogen, considered an expensive nutrient.

Dobereiner believes that her greatest contribution is having applied the process to sugar cane, which is also able to collect the bacteria and therefore bypass the need for the nitrogen fertilizer. In India, she says, that kind of fertilizer “represents 70 percent of the total costs.”

The technique is already being used in the sugar region north of Rio de Janeiro. But in Sao Paulo — the largest sugar-producing region — there has been some resistance, which she attributed to the fertilizing industry.

Besides reducing costs and increasing productivity, the bacteria are beneficial for the environment. They produce “a reverse greenhouse effect,” because they consume carbon dioxide (CO2), which the plants extract from the air for photosynthesis, she explained.

In the case of sugar cane, there is a double benefit because the bacteria also favors production of alcohol, which is used in place of gasoline in various parts of Brazil.

The scientist — whose international recognition has gained her membership in the Academies of Science of the Vatican and the Third World — is currently studying how to take the nitrogenized bacteria to the dend palm, a plant whose oil can be used to replace other petroleum products that poison the environment, such as diesel.

Although she rejects any references to gender within her field of work, and argues that anyone who is capable can get recognition, her influence has made the Center for Agro-Biology an exceptional institution in terms of women’s participation, says biologist Maria Cristina Prata Neves, one of Dobereiner’s disciples.

Of 29 researchers, 10 are women, a proportion which is quite unique within the system of 40 research centres that make up the Brazilian Enterprise for Agricultural Research (EMBRAPA), said Neves, who is 46 years old. Neves has been involved with the agro- biology research center for 24 years, and will shortly become its president.

“There are few women in the other centers of the EMBRAPA, and they usually work in microbiology, biochemistry, smaller things, with microscopes, involving details, more associated with female culture,” she pointed out.

“There are women directors, but always in the area of research, not in the field or in the higher echelons,” she added.

But Neves — who was attracted to agronomy because of her admiration for Dobereiner’s work — predicts a predominance of women in science in the near future.

“More women are studying science, and they are the majority in post-graduate courses, perhaps because they have a harder time finding employment,” she argued.

Dobereiner is “a great example” and deserves the Nobel Prize, says Prata Neves enthusiastically. After having studied soya, Neves is now looking at how to use the nitrogen in the air in a type of bean that can withstand the droughts and poverty of the northeastern part of Brazil.