Jobs and Income in the Countryside
A project launched by Petrobras and the Bank of Brazil settles more than a thousand families on the land in the integrated production of poultry, vegetables, and fruit.
Continuing a successful experiment, Petrobras and the Bank of Brazil Foundation launched a project in March for the implementation of a thousand units of Integrated and Sustainable Agroecological Production (PAIS), which will make possible the integrated production of poultry, vegetables, and fruit in a cyclical system without the use of chemical fertilizers or pesticides. A total of 1,182 families will benefit, in five Brazilian states: Rio de Janeiro, Rio Grande do Norte, Sergipe, Bahia, and Minas Gerais. The investment in the project will be US$ 4.6 million.
Each unit of the Integrated and Sustainable Agroecological Production program is installed in a ring system formed around a center and presupposes crops and/or different but complementary activities in each ring. The center is destined to the breeding of fowls, such as chickens and ducks. The excrement from these birds is, in turn, used to fertilize the crops planted in the rings. An agroecological area is reserved around each unit to be used for reforestation, fruit orchards, or the cultivation of native or commercial plant species. Irrigation is done by the drip method.
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An integrated sustainable agroecological production unit
To start each enterprise, the agricultural families in charge are given a PAIS kit comprising 33 items, including seeds, chickens, seedlings, and water tanks. They can also count on technical consultants and monitoring for two years in the execution of all phases of the project, that is, from the selection and preparation of the land to the commercialization of the produce.
In Rio de Janeiro, where the project is coordinated by the public interest civil society organization Convergência, 200 PAIS will be installed in municipalities close to the Rio de Janeiro Petrochemical Complex under construction in Itaboraí. In Rio Grande do Norte, there will be 200 units. In Sergipe, another 200 units will be created. In Bahia, 240 units will be installed. In Minas Gerais, 160 will be set up.
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The center of each unit is destined to the raising of poultry
Enthusiasm for the project could not be greater. “The project is sustainable, since it ensures subsistence feeding for hundreds of agricultural families and gives them the opportunity to sell production excesses, thereby creating jobs and income in the countryside, settling people on the land. It creates food security. In addition, the project is implemented in total harmony with nature, considering that it doesn’t foresee the use of chemical fertilizers or pesticides,” explains Luis Fernando Maia Nery, the Petrobras manager for Social Responsibility.
The Brazilian soap opera star, Marcos Palmeira, the owner of an organic produce farm in Rio de Janeiro, was present at the launching ceremony of the project, is familiar with the system, and endorses the group of enthusiasts. “This is a tool against hunger which has the advantages of ensuring a healthy life for the agricultural workers due to the absence of chemical products in the production process and of guaranteeing a greater degree of financial independence to the small producers,” he says.
More specifically, in the region surrounding the Rio de Janeiro Petrochemical Complex, the production units will perform a role of the utmost importance. “As COMPERJ will be one of Petrobras’ largest undertakings and will generate thousands of jobs in the region, the Integratedand Sustainable Agroecological Production units will be an additional reinforcement in keeping the workers on the land in Itaboraí and in municipalities influenced by the complex, such as Guapimirim, Mage, Cachoeiras de Macacu, Tanguá, and Rio Bonito,” adds Nery.
The Integrated and Sustainable Agroecological Production units are priority social technologies in the Social Technology Network (RTS) initiated in Brazil in 2005 with the objective of disseminating successful social inclusion experiments in Brazil brought about by the association between governments, companies, third sector institutions, and universities. Thanks to the network, 3,609 PAIS units have been established in 42 municipalities of 14 States. By 2010, the target is to implant five thousand units in 12 Brazilian states.
