Always fighting, in a country where financing for research is very irregular
Em Londrina, no interior do Paraná, uma pesquisadora da Embrapa passou décadas convencendo um mundo cético de que microrganismos do solo poderiam substituir fertilizantes químicos em escala industrial. Mariangela Hungria, agora reconhecida pela revista Time como uma das 100 pessoas mais influentes do mundo em 2026, representa algo mais amplo do que uma conquista científica individual: é a demonstração de que a inovação persistente, nascida em países em desenvolvimento e distante dos grandes centros de pesquisa, pode reconfigurar a forma como a humanidade se alimenta e cuida do planeta.
- A agricultura industrial enfrentava uma contradição crescente: os fertilizantes químicos que garantiam produtividade em larga escala também degradavam solos e aceleravam as emissões de gases de efeito estufa.
- Hungria desafiou décadas de ceticismo institucional ao defender que bactérias fixadoras de nitrogênio poderiam operar na escala da soja brasileira — a espinha dorsal da economia agrícola do país.
- Sua tecnologia foi adotada em 85% do cultivo de soja do Brasil, economizando cerca de US$ 25 bilhões anuais em fertilizantes e reduzindo 230 milhões de toneladas de CO2 equivalente por safra.
- Em 2025, tornou-se a primeira brasileira a vencer o Prêmio Mundial da Alimentação, e agora integra a lista das 100 pessoas mais influentes da Time — confirmações externas do que os dados já demonstravam.
- Além da microbiologia, Hungria articula uma visão mais ampla: segurança alimentar exige equidade, interdisciplinaridade e o reconhecimento do trabalho invisível das mulheres na agricultura.
Na quarta-feira, a revista Time anunciou que Mariangela Hungria, pesquisadora da Embrapa em Londrina, Paraná, integra a lista das 100 pessoas mais influentes do mundo em 2026. O reconhecimento coroa uma carreira iniciada em 1982, dedicada a uma questão central da agricultura moderna: como alimentar o mundo sem destruir o solo e o clima no processo.
Sua resposta veio da microbiologia. Hungria desenvolveu tecnologias baseadas em microrganismos capazes de fixar nitrogênio diretamente do ar, eliminando a necessidade de fertilizantes sintéticos em escala industrial. O resultado é concreto: a tecnologia foi adotada em 85% da soja brasileira, gerando uma economia de aproximadamente US$ 25 bilhões anuais e reduzindo 230 milhões de toneladas de CO2 equivalente por safra — números que não representam ajustes marginais, mas uma transformação estrutural na forma como o Brasil produz alimentos.
O caminho não foi simples. Quando começou, o establishment agrícola via os insumos biológicos como solução para hortas domésticas, não para a produção industrial. Hungria trabalhou no interior do Paraná, em um país com financiamento científico irregular, empurrando contra o ceticismo e a escassez. Em entrevista ao Estadão, ela descreveu essa trajetória com precisão: dedicar uma carreira a insumos biológicos numa época em que tudo era químico, longe dos centros de poder, sem garantias.
Em 2025, tornou-se a primeira brasileira a receber o Prêmio Mundial da Alimentação, considerado o Nobel da agricultura. Suas tecnologias já ultrapassaram as fronteiras do Brasil, influenciando práticas agrícolas em outros países. Hungria também coordena um grupo de trabalho na Academia Brasileira de Ciências voltado à segurança alimentar e nutricional, defendendo que produzir comida é apenas parte do problema — o restante exige atenção à equidade e ao acesso.
Ela tem destacado ainda o papel das mulheres na agricultura: as avós e mães que cultivam hortas comunitárias e transmitem conhecimento sobre plantas medicinais através das gerações, trabalho frequentemente invisível nas narrativas dominantes. Essa atenção à dimensão humana e social distingue sua trajetória de uma inovação puramente técnica — e talvez explique por que seu impacto vai além dos números.
On Wednesday, Time magazine announced that Mariangela Hungria, a researcher at Embrapa—Brazil's agricultural research agency—had been named to its list of the world's 100 most influential people in 2026. The recognition caps a career spent in Londrina, a city in Paraná state, where Hungria has worked since 1982 developing biological solutions to one of agriculture's most persistent problems: the chemical fertilizers that feed crops but damage soil and atmosphere alike.
Hungria's breakthrough centers on microorganisms that fix nitrogen from the air, allowing plants to absorb it naturally rather than relying on synthetic inputs. The technology sounds modest in description but has reshaped Brazilian agriculture at scale. Her work has been adopted across 85 percent of the country's soybean cultivation—the crop that defines Brazil's agricultural economy. The shift has saved the nation approximately $25 billion annually in fertilizer costs while reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 230 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per soybean harvest. These are not marginal improvements. They are the kind of numbers that reshape how a country feeds itself.
The path to this recognition was not straightforward. When Hungria began her career, the agricultural establishment viewed biological inputs as suitable only for small gardens or subsistence farming. The idea that microbes could replace chemicals at the scale of industrial soybean production seemed implausible to most. She worked in the interior of Paraná, in a country where research funding has always been irregular, pushing against skepticism and resource constraints. In an interview with Estadão, she reflected on this isolation: "Here in the interior of Paraná, always fighting, in a country where financing for research is very irregular, and having dedicated a career to biological inputs, at a time when everything was chemical." Her persistence transformed not just perception but practice.
In 2025, Hungria became the first Brazilian to win the World Food Prize, agriculture's highest honor, often called the Nobel Prize of food and farming. The award recognized what her work had already demonstrated: that sustainable agriculture at scale was not a luxury for wealthy nations or a compromise on productivity. It was a viable path forward. Her technologies have since spread beyond Brazil, adopted in other countries and influencing global agricultural practice. By reducing dependence on synthetic fertilizers, her research has lowered costs for farmers while advancing environmental stewardship—a rare alignment in an industry often forced to choose between the two.
Beyond the microbiology and the economics, Hungria has positioned herself as an advocate for food security and nutrition, work she coordinates through a task group at the Brazilian Academy of Sciences. She argues that producing food is only part of the solution to global hunger; the challenge requires interdisciplinary effort and attention to access and equity. She has also made visible the role of women in agriculture—the grandmothers and mothers who tend community gardens and pass medicinal herbs across generations, work often invisible in the larger narrative of agricultural production. "Women, who largely do agriculture, pass medicinal herbs from grandmother to mother to daughter. They care for community gardens," she has said. This attention to the human and social dimensions of food production distinguishes her work from purely technical innovation.
Hungria holds degrees in agricultural engineering from the University of São Paulo and has spent decades studying soil microbiology and biological nitrogen fixation, with doctoral and postdoctoral training in soil science and microbiology. Her career represents something increasingly rare: a scientist from a developing nation whose work has fundamentally altered global agricultural practice while addressing climate change and food security simultaneously. The Time recognition is, in that sense, a confirmation of what the numbers have already shown—that innovation in agricultural science, pursued with rigor and persistence in places far from the world's research centers, can reshape how humanity feeds itself.
Notable Quotes
Here in the interior of Paraná, always fighting, in a country where financing for research is very irregular, and having dedicated a career to biological inputs, at a time when everything was chemical.— Mariangela Hungria, in interview with Estadão
Women, who largely do agriculture, pass medicinal herbs from grandmother to mother to daughter. They care for community gardens.— Mariangela Hungria
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
Why does biological nitrogen fixation matter so much? It sounds technical, but what's actually at stake?
Chemical fertilizers are energy-intensive to produce—they require fossil fuels. When you can replace them with microorganisms that do the same job, you're cutting both the cost and the carbon footprint. But the real shift is that this works at scale. It's not a boutique solution.
And Hungria convinced people of that when they didn't believe it?
Exactly. In the 1980s and 1990s, the assumption was that biological inputs were for small farms, not industrial agriculture. She spent decades proving that assumption wrong, working in a place with limited resources, in a country where research funding is unpredictable.
The numbers are striking—$25 billion saved, 230 million tons of CO2 avoided per harvest. How did she measure impact at that scale?
The adoption rate tells the story. When 85 percent of Brazil's soybean cultivation uses her technology, you're not talking about a niche practice anymore. You're talking about a transformation of how a major agricultural economy operates.
She won the World Food Prize before Time named her. Did that change how people saw her work?
It legitimized what she'd been doing. The World Food Prize is the highest recognition in agriculture. It signaled to the world that this wasn't just Brazilian success—it was a model with global implications.
She also talks about women in agriculture. Why is that part of her message?
Because food security isn't just about yield. It's about who grows food, who has access to it, and whose knowledge gets recognized. She's pointing out that women do enormous agricultural work that's often invisible in the statistics.
What does a Time 100 recognition actually change for someone like her?
It amplifies her voice. She's already influential through her science, but this puts her in conversation with global leaders and thinkers. It's a platform to push the conversation about sustainable agriculture further.