After nearly ten years of work, the association is the first pulp producer in a quilombola territory in Maranhão to obtain authorization to access the formal market.
In April, the Association of the Quilombola Community of São José dos Portugueses, located in Cândido Mendes, in the northwestern region of the state of Maranhão, obtained from the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply (Mapa) the certificate of establishment registration as a producer and manufacturer of fruit pulp. With this, they will be able to offer their products in the formal market, including through the Food Acquisition Program (PAA), the National School Feeding Program (PNAE), and other institutional markets throughout Brazil.
The Association is the first in quilombola territory to receive registration in Maranhão and the second in Brazil. This achievement is an important milestone for income generation and social development in Alto Turi, one of the poorest regions in the state. The action is also important for providing agroecological food to the region's population, with an agro-industry, EcoPolpa, officially registered with all sanitary requirements and protocols, capable of supplying food contextualized to the region.
“The community sometimes felt discouraged, but always confident that it would work out, and now we will be able to take our product to all of Brazil. The entire community is very happy with this achievement, and that's how we are gradually building more victories for our Quilombola people, even in such a sacrificed region,” comments one of the creators of the project that made this achievement possible, the farmer and Quilombola Marinaldo Silva Oliveira.
To mark this achievement, on May 21st, the inauguration of the EcoPolpa Agroindustry will take place, which will also be a moment for articulation for sustainability and support for strengthening the initiative. The event will be held in the Quilombola community of São José dos Portugueses itself and will be attended by the governor of the state of Maranhão, the municipalities of the Alto Turi region, the president of the State Agency for Agricultural Research and Rural Extension (AGERP), the state secretary of family agriculture, the Brazilian Service for Support to Micro and Small Enterprises (Sebrae), and potential commercial partners from the region.
Region with strong impacts from social inequality.
According to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), Cândido Mendes has a Human Development Index (HDI) of 0,561, one of the lowest in Brazil, and is included in the Maranhão +HDI project. The Alto Turi region, where the municipality is located, has strong remnants of a slave-owning past, in which a large part of the black population had to reorganize themselves to obtain land and food. The low income and education levels contrast with the environmental reality, especially with the great diversity of fruits that are not used due to a lack of infrastructure.
“The region is very rich; the environment cared for by the quilombola community produces different species of native and cultivated fruits, including açaí, bacuri, bacaba, pineapple, cashew, and many others that were previously unused and lost due to a lack of processing infrastructure. The struggle of the São José dos Portugueses Community aims to combine the use of these resources with income generation, which is fundamental in current times, including for keeping young people in rural areas. It is a good example to inspire public policies of socio-productive inclusion, essential for the region,” emphasized Silvana Bastos, technical advisor at the Institute for Society, Population and Nature (ISPN), which follows the trajectory of the São José dos Portugueses Quilombola Community Association.
Strengthening the socio-productive capacity of traditional communities, with public policies that favor access to markets, is a good path initiated by the association. "We expect development, we hope to know that what we do here has an impact on the development of our city," comments the president of the Association, Raimunda Nascimento e Coelho.
The project supported the realization of the community's dream.
Since 2014, the quilombola community of Cândido Mendes has been fighting to obtain infrastructure for processing the region's fruits and to regularize their status with the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply (MAPA). During this period, the community initiated a project to realize their dream of strengthening local socio-biodiversity products and building an agro-industry, EcoPolpa, with the support of the Fund for the Promotion of Productive Eco-social Landscapes (PPP-ECOS), managed by ISPN and which receives financial support from the Amazon Fund.
After eight years, R$ 390 in eco-social projects were invested in the construction and installation of the agro-industry, in training for good practices and management of the establishment, in the management of conserved native areas, and in the production of productive backyards, where more than 10 types of fruits are produced and processed as agroecological pulps. The Association also had the partnership of the municipality of Cândido Mendes, the State Agency for Agricultural Research and Rural Extension of Maranhão (Agerp), and the Brazilian Service of Support to Micro and Small Enterprises (Sebrae), which contributed with technical assistance, which, added to the labor and other contributions from the community, totals more than R$ 107 in counterpart funding for the enterprise. In addition, ISPN supported the hiring of specialized consulting services in sanitary regularization, fundamental for achieving approval from the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply (Mapa).
Today, 30 families are already directly involved in the project, and the expectation is to increase that number to 170. With this goal, local residents will be able to sell their fruit to the agro-industry, increase their income, and contribute to the sustainable development of the region. In this sense, the supply of local products will be strengthened, changing a situation where a large part of the fruit pulp comes from Pará, a contradiction for a region so rich in fruit diversity.
“The impact this registration will have on the community will be of great importance in boosting our agriculture and fruit growing, since the community has a diversity of native fruits and also crops that in previous years were spoiled, even with processing we had barriers to commercialization, motivated by not having sanitary registration. Our farmers produced and harvested what was necessary, now we have the first agro-industry of fruit pulp in a quilombola community in the state of Maranhão with certification from MAPA,” stated Abnaldo Reis Coelho, quilombola and member of the project coordination.
Why was the regularization with the Ministry of Agriculture an achievement?
The regulation of the fruit pulp supply chain is one of the most complex due to the various requirements for this type of family-run business to comply with sanitary standards. Product transportation is one of the complicating factors, as maintaining refrigeration of the pulp is fundamental, requiring adequate infrastructure. Registration for commercialization also differs from most products, which generally obtain authorization through municipalities via the National Health Surveillance Agency (Anvisa). In the case of fruit pulps, authorization is only granted at the federal level, through the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply (Mapa).
According to Rodrigo Noleto, coordinator of the ISPN Amazon Program, community and family-run agro-industries are generally simple units, but they add value to socio-biodiversity products. “Despite this, there are cases, such as fruit pulp processing units, that encounter difficulties in becoming legally compliant and, therefore, require support from specialized professionals to handle the procedures of the regulatory body for production, the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply (MAPA). This attribution to an agency distant from the municipalities makes it difficult for small units to have their product approved for the formal market. Few fruit pulp processing units are of community origin, like the one in the Quilombo of São José dos Portugueses, which, with great effort, has managed to overcome the difficulties and secure its product in the market, whatever it may be,” Noleto emphasized.
The dream continues.
Almost ten years after the start of this journey, the São José dos Portugueses Quilombola Community Association has obtained authorization, which now also allows it to sell its products throughout Brazil and to institutional markets such as the PAA and PNAE. School meals and the local population will now have the taste of their own local diversity in their daily lives.
Today, the community sustainably manages 2.100 hectares of native fruit crops. With EcoPolpas certification, families can continue to pursue their dream of selling at least R$120 worth of fruit pulp in 2022. This will allow the local population to have greater access to products made in the region itself, which are healthier and more in tune with their realities. "Our perspective now with this certification, in addition to boosting sales of our products, is to make our community more productive, vibrant, and productive," Abnaldo enthusiastically stated.
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Website facilitates access to information on rules for the regularization of agribusinesses.
ISPN has launched the Agroindustry website, which translates the legal instruments for regulating the production of small and medium-sized farmers and agro-extractive producers of animal or plant products into accessible language. The new site has a simplified format, accessible even to people with digital difficulties. Those interested can access the page at [website address]. www.agroindustria.org.br Follow the self-explanatory step-by-step instructions to find the appropriate guidelines for the products being sold. The portal provides rules for the production of coconuts, nuts, fruits, vegetables, baked goods, fish, cassava, and derived products. Future updates plan to incorporate guidelines for processing more products, such as honey and other products of animal origin.