An Overview Of Our Solution
Actions developed in the northern Mato Grosso, known as the Amazon Portal, to strengthen family farming and promote the transition of productive systems through the planting of agroforestry systems. The results involve more than 2200 hectares planted and the structuring of a network for support: forest seed collectors network, strategies for local commercialization of products and formation of a community bank, in addition to structures of collective management and experience exchange. The effects of this action, begun in 2010 in a more structured way, are due to greater engagement of men and women in rural areas, which improved income and environmental conditions. The main learning of the initiative is centered in the importance of a systemic approach, in the strengthening of the community organization and establishment of networks
Who is this solution impacting?
Community Type
Suburban
Rural
Additional Information
- Population Impacted:
- Continent: South America
General Information
Organization type
Nirlaba
Ecosystem (select all that apply)
Forests
Population impacted
131305 people
Challenge
Size of agricultural area
2200 ha
Production quantity
More than US$ 1.000.000,00 in agricutural products
People employed
23
Solution
Describe your solution
Since 2004, we worked to strengthen rural communities. The actions are based on 4 strategies: i) strengthening mechanisms for community participation and organization (the core of the strategy), ii) developing tools to support agro-ecological production and recovery of degraded areas (based on agroforestry systems), iii) support the commercialization of products from small farms and iv) creation of a network of research / extension with new partner entities to support the agroecological movement in the region. The action is based on a systemic vision in which the transformation of reality will not only be due to direct support to the farmers, but also with the creation of a support network that will, in fact, radiate the transformation in rural and urban areas. For that, the collective action is considerer fundamental. Nowadays, a cooperative network has been set up between farmers to store, distribute and commercialize agricultural and forestry seeds, to manage a community bank to support small-scale community investment, to work with technical support for planting agroforestry systems, to organize farmer markets and local food circuits and to structure a network of community communicators to support the activities of mobilization and dissemination of peasant agriculture in the region. Farmers actively participate in the management of these activities through local and regional councils.
Implementation
Describe your implementation
The actions began with the formation of community groups for planting agroforestry systems. To support this initiative, the Seed Network of the Portal da Amazonia was formed - a group of about 120 small farmers, organized in 11 “Community Seed Houses”, who have been collecting, storing, distributing and purchasing forest seeds (currently they involve more than 200 native forest species). A network of technicians was formed to promote capacity-building actions in planting and management. At the same time, the support for Seed Network, through workshops for collection, processing and storage of seeds, has allowed to improve the quality and the access by farmers to forest seeds. In addition to the improvement of family food, agroforestry has contributed to the improvement of family income once a network of product marketing has been formed. Different experiences of local commercialization (farmer markets, on-line marketing and access to government purchase) have been developed. Currently, this support network has expanded with the structuring of Community Bank “Raiz”, which, through microcredit, started to support small investments in the properties. All these actions are managed by groups of small farmers organized locally and in a large regional council. The local councils meet monthly to plan and evaluate activities. Every three months the regional council meets to discuss the advances and limitations that are being experienced. The process of organization, with the constant exchange of experiences and collaboration between groups, is considered the main element of this experience. The results are monitored by monitoring the planted areas, the number of people involved in the various activities (and the participation of women and younger), the volume of products and resources involved in the commercialization of products, and the success rate of microcredit projects
External connections
The success of this initiative dependeds on its articulation with many partner entities. First, it is important to indicate the engagement of different social movements, especially the “Comissão Pastoal da Terra” (CPT) and the “Movimento de Mulheres Camponesas” (MMC), which played an important role in the initial mobilization of small farmers. The involvement of informal associations and groups in rural communities was also a key part of the process. The financial support that allowed a great jump in the magnitude of the actions was done by the National Bank of Economic and Social Development (BNDES), through the Amazon Fund. Lastly, each group of farmers also established partnerships at certain time with local municipalities - these partnerships were specific and focused on specific support for solving issues (product transportation, donation of seedlings, support for training activities among others). Recently, the network of partnerships expanded and began to involve universities, both in the Amazon region and in other regions. These universities have contributed to the generation of applied research to improve the techniques of agroforestry planting, seed storage, management of this whole network and also the understanding of the socioecological impacts of the actions. As mentioned before, one of the most impressive results of the initiative is the creation of a huge collective action involving different kinds of social actors
Results
What is the environmental or ecological challenge you are targeting with your solution?
With the advancement of monocultures, forest fragments were eliminated, including areas for protection of springs and riparian forests, generating problems in water supply on rural properties and cities. Currently the northern region of Mato Grosso state accumulates deforestation in the order of 50% of its area, but there are municipalities with accumulated deforestation higher than 90%. It is an environmentally strategic region which includes important preservation areas as the Xingu Indigenous Park, the Cristalino State Park and Juruena Park. Also, for its localization in an agricultural frontier, the future of the “Amazon Portal”, it is closely linked with the future of more internal areas of Amazon forest.
Describe the context in which you are operating
We operate in na area where remaining forest areas are under pressure from the expansion of large soybean and livestock production - in some municipalities, deforestation accumulates more than 80% of the total area. This carried to serious environmental problems, such as silting up of springs, contamination by agrochemicals and loss of biodiversity, causing disequilibrium in local fauna and flora and significant climate change - many farmers report changes in the rainfall regime, loss of soil fertility and greater insect attack on their crops. All these changes are particularly challenging for small farmers, who depend essentially of natural resources for their survival (small farmers represent 85% of total farmers in the region). Parallel to this scenario, there is a greater fragility of food security, with a decrease in the production of food destined to the municipalities, and strong rural exodus, with concentration of land and weakening of rural communities
How did you impact natural resource use and greenhouse gas emissions?
The actions involved the planting of about 2,200 hectares of agroforestry systems in 08 municipalities in the Portal da Amazonia region (northern Mato Grosso) since 2010 - these agroforests work with the concept of natural succession and high diversity of species – each system has at least from 25 to 80 forestall species. These areas became islands of biodiversity within the properties and in many cases ecological corridors were formed between properties with the connection of different agroforests. That occurs in the case of agroforestry planted to protect rivers and springs. The improvement in the environmental quality is evident in all the communities, either by the greater vegetal and animal biodiversity, by the improvement in soil quality (erosion reduction and increase of soil fertility) or in water quality
Water
About 1/3 of the agroforestry areas were planted in protected areas of springs and riparian forests, promoting the improvement of water quality in these localities (preservation of springs and improvement and reduction of water contamination by soil and animal dejects)
Food Security/Nutrition
Agroforestry induced an improvement in the quantity and the quality of products destined for local food, either in the properties themselves or in the cities. In rural properties agroforestry allowed to improve the food security of families by the greater supply and diversity of foods (including native products). In the cities, the creation of local circuits favored the access to low cost and better quality food.
Economic/Sustainable Development
More than US$ 1,000,000 was commercialized in the new farmers market and local systems since 2014. In addition, about US$ 300,000.00 in forest seeds were commercialized, consolidating the collection of seeds as a new generating activity of income for families. About 1/3 of the agroforestry areas have been managed with economic goal by the farmers
Climate
The activities had a positive impact both on mitigation and adaptation of farmers to climate change. The creation of new production systems, based on biodiversity, has increased the resilience of farmer´s livelihoods, particularly by increasing local environmental quality (some examples: the agroforestry has higher capacity to retain water in soil and decrease the temperature variations, which is especially important in dry seasons)
Sustainability
The sustainability of actions involves three elements: 1) local capacity building (not only on a technical approach, but also to facilitate the collective action), 2) structure for collective management of actions (structuring informal and formal groups to ensure the continuity of actions) and 3) commercialization and microcredit (group financial autonomy). It should be noted that the initial funding was necessary to guarantee the creation of this base.
Return on investment
Since the beginning to nowadays, approximately US $ 3,000,000.00 have been invested in these actions. Only considering the environmental dimension, the results are extremely positive, with a low value / hectare recovered (much lower than traditional techniques). It should also add positive effects in other dimensions, such as the capacity building and commercialization, as well as impacts of more difficult measurement, such as improving environmental quality and food safety
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Replication and Scale
How could we successfully replicate this solution elsewhere?
The actions described began in 2003 very punctually in some communities in the municipality of Carlinda, Mato Grosso, Brazil. From the expressive results reached by these communities, new groups were incorporated and the network began to increase, allowing the expansion to two other municipalities. In 2010, with the involvement of social movements and the support of the Amazon Fund (BNDES), actions could be expanded again. However, the logic of starting from community organization has always been maintained. Thus, we can perceive that more than an environmental recovery action, what we built in this journey was an engagement process and the strengthening of family agriculture in the region. We believe that the initiative can be re-edited in other locations, following the same principle: a systemic view, always starting from local groups and articulations.