The Instituto Agronômico de Campinas has been one of the most important agricultural research institutions in the Americas since it was founded in 1887 under the Brazilian Empire. It was established partly to help the coffee industry, which was then the engine of the São Paulo state economy, and over the following 140 years its researchers made fundamental contributions to coffee, sugar cane, tropical fruit, and soybean cultivation. Much of the reason Brazil became an agricultural superpower traces back to science done on this campus.
The public park within the institute grounds is genuinely beautiful: a large collection of mature tropical trees, some of them rare, in a well-tended landscape. It is open to the public and free to enter. There is also a small museum covering the institute's history. This is a quieter and less visited corner of the city, which makes it more pleasant. The coffee germplasm collection — a living library of hundreds of coffee varieties — is on site, though it is not always accessible to casual visitors.