The public-private partnership already existed during PLANALSUCAR, but was maintained and refined by RIDESA. During PLANALSUCAR, the federal government funded most of the research. The technologies developed, including the varieties, were validated within companies. This interaction between PLANALSUCAR researchers and companies ensured the continuity of this initiative within RIDESA.

 

However, in this second phase, the funding for this research began to be financed by sugar mills, distilleries, and sugarcane suppliers, with universities contributing part of their contributions to developing the RB sugarcane genetic improvement program. There are 313 companies with partnership agreements with universities, representing approximately 75% of Brazilian sugarcane, sugar, ethanol, and bioelectricity producers.

 

This greatly facilitates the validation and adoption of a new variety. When a new variety is released, there are companies already cultivating it on large areas. This is because all partner companies receive RB clones for evaluation in experiments, several years before their potential release as a new variety.

 

This RIDESA partnership model with companies allows for the definition of cultivar management. Hundreds of experiments are conducted at mills and distilleries for this purpose. Additionally, the highest-yielding RB clones in the experiments are evaluated in areas of 10 to 100 hectares, under different management conditions. This creates a very positive interaction between university and company teams, maximizing the number of observations and joint planning for the formation of seedling nurseries, especially for new genotypes that may be released as new RB varieties.