Social organizations, government agencies, businesses, and coconut breakers are seeking solutions to revitalize one of the most important sociobiodiversity production chains: babassu. The latest IBGE Agricultural Census (2017) indicates the sharpest reduction in babassu harvesting and breaking since 1940.
The decline in babassu production began in the 1990s, but it was from 2006 onward that the decline in the number of establishments involved in babassu extraction became more significant. There were 58.429 establishments in 2006, compared to only 15.491 in 2017. During the same period, almond production fell from 150 tons/year to approximately 17 tons/year.
These data were analyzed by Embrapa researcher Roberto Porro during the first Babaçu Dialogues – a meeting organized by the German Agency for Technical Cooperation (GIZ) and held on October 25 and 26 in São Luís. WWF Brazil and the Institute for Population and Nature Society (ISPN), members of the Cerrado Network and which have initiatives to strengthen the babaçu supply chain in Maranhão, also supported and participated in this exchange of experiences.
Among the factors contributing to this drastic reduction indicated by the IBGE are the reduction of palm forests, mainly due to pressure from livestock and soybeans; the lack of oversight and enforcement of the Free Babaçu Law, a state law in Piauí and Tocantins, but, paradoxically, a municipal law in only 12 of the 217 cities in Maranhão, historically the largest national producer of babaçu nuts; and the difficulty of obtaining credit for family farming in the Northeast.
Despite this scenario of obstacles, community associations and coconut breakers' cooperatives presented the development and potential of this production chain with innovations in the use of the coconut kernel and babassu-based food products. During the meeting, coconut breakers also demonstrated commitment to devising collective solutions that can benefit communities and nature.
"We're discovering a huge variety of babassu derivatives, but babassu could disappear soon. What will happen to us? How will the coconut breakers work, and how will we produce the quantity of products we're already producing today? And what about the other products we're discovering every day?", asks Antônia Vieira, from the Quilombola Mothers Club of the Pedrinhas community, located in Itapecuru-Mirim, in Maranhão.
The community of Antônia Vieira even produces burgers made with babassu nut flour. This innovative product was developed with support from Embrapa Cocais in partnership with the Federal University of Maranhão (UFMA) and the Federal University of Ceará (UFC). Besides the burger, they also offer babassu biscuits, coconut candy, and various types of cookies. Other organizations, such as the Association of Rural Women Workers of Lago do Junco and Lago dos Rodrigues (Maranhão), the Association of Settlement Areas in the State of Maranhão (ASSEMA), and the Interstate Movement of Coconut Breakers (MIQCB), presented products such as olive oil, soap, babassu mesocarp flour, and handicrafts.
Obstacles to collecting babassu coconut
One of the biggest problems facing rural producers and coconut breakers like Antônia Vieira, if not the most serious, is that most of the babassu forest is located on private rural properties. The Free Babassu Law allows breakers to enter these properties to collect coconuts and also prohibits the felling of palm trees. However, without oversight, even where this legislation exists, many breakers are prevented from collecting. They also report the use of poison to kill babassu palms, which die despite remaining standing—a form of circumvention.
"There are many concerns for coconut breakers, due to deforestation, fires, and even the spraying of poison that has been occurring in some municipalities and is destroying palm trees. Babassu is very important for families who work directly or indirectly with this chain because it generates income, and if babassu is depleted, that income will disappear, and many people will have no work," says Antonia Vieira.
"We face several barriers as coconut breakers. Arriving here at the meeting, listening to the other women, I saw that they face the same problems. About 70% of the breakers in our association don't have their own land. They use coconuts from other people's land.", highlights Rozeny Batista Alexandra, a coconut breaker from Axixá, in the Bico do Papagaio region, in Tocantins.
Rozeny Batista also reports on the deforestation of babassu palm groves to make way for agribusiness monocultures, cases of violence against palm breakers, and the use of poison to kill palm trees. "It's very sad to see a woman who breaks coconuts, who raised her children, who already has a grown son, and today has no right to the coconut. Now, they [landowners] have invented a trend of not cutting down the palm tree. They kill it standing. So if the palm tree is standing, it's not a crime for them. We really hope we can count on the support of the government to help us.", he added.
In Maranhão, the situation is no different. Another piece of data from the Agricultural Census indicates that in 2017, only one-third of the state's arable land was dedicated to family farming. According to Ricarte Almeida Santos, Deputy Secretary of Biodiversity and Social Technologies at the State Secretariat for Family Farming (SAF), who participated in the opening panel of the Babaçu Dialogues, this share of family farming is likely much smaller today.
Santos was emphatic about the need to halt the growth of soybeans in Maranhão, given that this hegemonic and accelerated expansion threatens the existence of other forms of agricultural production and the traditional way of life of quilombolas, caboclos, indigenous people and coconut breakers, generating rural exodus and overloading the cities.
"We have observed the acceleration of soybean expansion, including in territories we never imagined it would reach, such as the Western Lowlands, the Eastern Lowlands, and the coasts of Maranhão. So, this means that if this acceleration continues—including marked by significant violence against communities—the territory of family farming in Maranhão is at risk of extinction; the ways of life of traditional peoples are at risk of disappearing due to the so-called soybean agribusiness. This would be an extraordinary crime, an ethnocide against Black people, mixed-race people, coconut breakers, Indigenous people, people who live off traditional practices of life reproduction.", he said.
There is a lot of potential despite the decline in production
Despite contesting some methodological aspects that led to the results obtained by the IBGE Agricultural Census, researcher Roberto Porro observes these data with concern.
"It is important to extend this dialogue to other segments that, unfortunately, could not be present to contribute to this process because, in this period now, in which this sociobiodiversity economy is becoming visible, babassu has a very strong space to be filled and a consensual strategy is necessary to maximize the potential of this economy and bring benefits to all segments of the production chain.", said.
In his own study, Professor Porro points out that in 334 municipalities (in Maranhão, Pará, Tocantins, Piauí, and Bahia), there are still 12,5 million hectares dominated by babassu palm groves. The production potential of these areas with babassu palm forests is 1,5 million tons per year. Roberto Porro emphasizes that even in the 1970s and 1980s, almond production never reached 20% of this potential, and that, currently, based on IBGE data, production is between 1% and 4% of the total volume it could reach.
Access to credit
Another problem highlighted by several coconut breakers who met at the Babaçu Dialogues was the difficulty in obtaining credit. According to data from the Ministry of Agrarian Development (MDA), the Northeast region, which has 47% of family farmers, received only 12% of the resources from the National Program to Strengthen Family Farming (Pronaf); while the South region, which has only 17% of family farmers, received 60% of the program's resources.
Another issue is the prices charged by the Minimum Price Guarantee Policy for Sociobiodiversity Products (PGPM-Bio), which guarantees a minimum price for 17 extractive products that help conserve Brazilian biomes, including babassu.
The coordinator of Access and Conservation of Biomes at the Secretariat of Land Governance, Territorial and Socio-environmental Development of the MDA, Raquel Souza, explained that dialogues to solve the problems can be paths to improving the babassu chain. "We believe that these partnerships focused on sociobiodiversity chains are essential to strengthening initiatives and for us, as a Ministry, to have clarity about the demands, what civil society is seeing, and what is necessary for us to be able to act together.", he said.
Raquel Souza noted that, despite the diversity of the meeting, which brought together coconut breakers from Maranhão, Pará and Tocantins, the issues were common, such as the loss of babassu palm plantations and the difficulty in finding a market.
"We've identified several demands regarding babassu public policies, some of which we already have a clear understanding of, such as the PGPMBio, which already has several initiatives to correct prices and reorganize this policy, as well as the demand for increased purchases by the PAA [Food Acquisition Program] and the PNAE [National Specialized Care Policy], which are also being considered and renegotiated for next year. So, in this regard, we already have a lot underway.", he said.
Initiatives that believe in this potential
The Instituto Sociedade População e Natureza (ISPN) and WWF Brasil, which are part of the Cerrado Network, supported the organization and participated in the first Babaçu Dialogues, created by GIZ.
"The event brought together grassroots workers who often have less voice, the coconut breakers. So, the feeling is that it was a very important step, especially because we're living in a favorable political moment in Brazil. We can't let our guard down because it's favorable, but we have to use this moment to strengthen ourselves as organizations and move forward.", said André Freitas, coordinator of the Cerrado Vivo Project and conservation analyst at WWF Brazil.
WWF is a partner of ISPN, which has been working for 33 years to conserve Brazilian biomes. "From an ecosocial perspective, that is, one that values productive and sustainable livelihoods, we join organizations and individuals who combine the sustainable use of sociobiodiversity with the use and management of the landscape. ISPN's participation in the Babaçu Dialogues has this perspective of supporting those who have historically dedicated time and effort to discussing the challenges and opportunities of the babaçu chain." stated the coordinator of the ISPN Maranhão Program, Ruthiane Pereira.
ISPN adopts a strategy called Promotion of Ecosocial Landscapes (PPP-ECOS), one of whose pillars is support for community projects through the PPP-ECOS Fund. Through this fund, the Institute has supported initiatives with traditional peoples and communities and family farming. Over the 29 years of the PPP-ECOS Fund, ISPN has supported 940 projects in partnership with more than 12 donors, in addition to the Amazon Fund. Of these, 129 projects are underway or have been implemented in Maranhão. Furthermore, 17 are directly linked to the babassu production chain in 14 municipalities.
Text: Cássio Bezerra/ISPN Communications Advisor