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Tell us a bit about the story of
this farmer, who dug his roots into the sertão of
the State of Paraíba.
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Basically,
the story is very simple… At the beginning of the 70’s,
coming from Paris, where I graduated in Law, I was sent as a
trainee to a foreign company in São Paulo. That is how I had
the opportunity of training in every region of Brazil, getting
to know the country rapidly and in every aspect, both industrial
and agricultural: I then worked in the pharmaceutical sector,
the pigments industry that supplies the paper, leather, metal
and textile sectors, and finally in agriculture, besides finance.
I recall that my first contact with the semi-arid zone was
trying to introduce the cultivation of a senna seed, which was
then used for the production of laxatives. We undertook a long
journey through the interior, speaking to people responsible for
rural extension, community leaders and Agriculture Departments
in two or three Northeastern states.
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What
impression did this contact with the sertão give you?
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It was a moving cultural shock that made me
think a lot. I sought for more information about this region,
which lived in a different century. I reached a quick and
simplified conclusion: that this chronic state of extreme poverty
and underdevelopment was mostly caused by the difficulty of
accessing technology, for many reasons. Not being able to change
the world, nor even wanting to face the oligarchies or a heavy
political structure, I decided to try an experiment on my own,
using my own financial resources, and according to my view of the
problem, seeking solutions that would be limited, sure, but easy
to repeat if successful. A good challenge, as the few foreigners
that entered the sertão only came for short missions for
account of SUDENE (the North-East Development Agency) |
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| What
was your plan to attack the distressing scenario that you
encountered? |
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The
basic idea was to work within the traditional framework of the
association of cotton and cattle, bringing technical improvements
to both activities. We intended to use and to propagate seeds of
perennial long-fiber cotton, originating from research carried out
by SUDENE and the French entity IRCT, and to grow it there with
simple mechanization techniques, without the association with corn
and beans, growing the latter in separate areas. |
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At
the same time, the objective was to create a breeding stock of
dairy cattle of the brown-suisse breed, highly
rustic and resistant to the harsh climatic conditions of the sertão,
improving them through artificial insemination. In this way we
could deliver the milk produced to the nearby town of Patos, where
there is a lack of milk during the 8 months of drought every year,
and to sell breeding bulls that would bring a significant genetic
improvement to the local herds, mainly in respect of
precociousness and in the quality of the dairy products. Note that
this breed already existed in the sertão and was very much
sought after. |
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Heifers
of the brown-swiss breed
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After
deciding on the strategy, you needed a place to implement it… |
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After some months searching in the Seridó
region in the States of Ceará, Rio Grande do Norte, Paraíba and
Pernambuco, in the areas where long-fiber cotton is grown, I found
the Tamanduá Farm, near Patos, which offered the best conditions
for my plan.I was successful, quickly becoming a producer of
selected seeds of the C71 variety for the Agriculture and Food
Supply Department of the State of Paraíba, where I had found
support, encouragement and constructive dialogue. The cattle met
our expectations and was well accepted, and the milk was sold,
without further processing, in the town. |
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How
about the climate, how did you face this adversity?
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We
lived according to the rhythm of the droughts, which are
complicated and always different, always having to find new
solutions. We tried experimenting with new crops, varieties of
forage and pasture, seeking to discover crops that were simple to
grow and would bring a good return to the farmer who had lost his
"cash crop" of cotton. We even grew asparagus, passion
fruit and bananas. We tried growing guar, peanuts, sesame,
soy, guayule, maniçoba, and many types of grasses for
cutting or trampling. |
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| When
did the dairy project appear? |
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Contrast:
Dry brush in the distance,
fruiting mango trees in front
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The
end of the "white gold" cycle, when the bicudo
came to stay and it was impossible to live with it, lead us to
enhance the dairy project – building a cheese plant inspected by
the SIF (federal sanitary agency) – and to plant 27 hectares
with irrigated mango trees of the varieties Tommy Atkins and Keitt. |
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social and economic transformation was implemented in the region. |
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Finally,
yes, we may say that we have changed a certain view that the sertão
is miserable, by creating an island of development, with applied
technology, and solutions that can be reproduced. We are receiving
frequent visits from University professors, students, and federal
or state civil servants. The experience accumulated in the last 25
years represents a significant amount of information about how to
live with the drought in the sertão, in an active and no
longer a passive way, and which we share with all those interested.
Today, with organic agriculture and livestock breeding, we have
moved another step forward, organizing meetings and field days
with the local farmers, disseminating new techniques, even better
adapted to this fragile biotype. |
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When
and why did you opt for organic production?
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The
interval between periods of drought was growing shorter, and the
1998/9 period was especially hard. We lost 80% of the artificial
pastures and 100% of the irrigated forage areas, and managed to
save the mango trees with great effort. The herd was greatly
reduced, and only the best breeding cows were kept.
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We
had to rebuild almost everything from scratch. I have always been
concerned about environmental preservation and about the fragile
biodiversity of the sertão. The introduction of cultivated
crops followed a strict plan, preserving woods, opening clearings
in the bush, always planting quickly in order to avoid erosion
caused by the sun and wind, as well as the very heavy rains during
our short Winter, fixing the soil with the plants’ roots. We
created a private nature reserve; we even made pioneering use of
BT to control caterpillars in passion fruit cultivation, from 1978
on. This re-birth of Tamanduá Farm should have new bases, a new
vision, and not just repeating the same thing. I had learnt about
the strong growth of organic agriculture and livestock breeding in
Europe, and I contacted a Swiss friend who breeds dairy cattle in
the organic fashion, and who confirmed that this option was
possible and feasible. In addition, the pressure of demand enabled
better prices to be obtained in international markets. You must
remember that it is necessary to irrigate for 8 months of the year. |
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A
representative pau d'arco tree found
on Tamanduá Farm’s Private Nature Reserve
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| IBD
is the body that certifies products from Tamanduá Farm. What
criterion was used in choosing it? |
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The
choice of IBD – the certifier with the greatest experience in
Brazil – seemed obvious to me. Open to dialogue as it is, IBD
immediately showed great interest in the challenge of developing,
with us, organic norms for the sertão, aimed at livestock
breeding and fruit growing, integrated in a single property. The
option for DEMETER and the "farming organism" was also
obvious.The IBD people are known as radical, but this is a
tremendous exaggeration, and I much prefer a complicated certifier
to a careless one. When visiting the farm, certain potential mango
buyers went as far as to suggest other certifiers to me, less
"bureaucratic"... Absurd ! |
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At
present, we are the only dairy producers in Brazil to have
obtained organic certification from the IBD and the supervision of
the Federal Inspection Service for dairy products. We export our
mangoes to Europe from a packing-house built at Tamanduá Farm
under the control of the Ministry of Agriculture. The cheeses are
sold in the national market. |
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Cheeses
from Tamanduá Farm |
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| Saint
Paulin |
Reblochon |
Coalho |
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We
are disseminating organic agriculture and we have already managed
to convert a small producer who is starting to plant 5 hectares
with mango trees. |
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| How
do you see the arrival of more certification seals ? |
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Organic
agriculture came to solve the "mal bouffe" problem, and
the consumer’s anxiety regarding the quality and potential
toxicity of the food he consumes. It ensures the consumer total
tracking all the way to back to the field. For example, each 4 kg
box of our mangoes shows not only the month and date of harvest,
but also the number of the area in which it was harvested. The
current proliferation of seals confuses the consumer, who in the
end does not know the difference between each of them, and
therefore finds himself in the almost same position as before.
This situation, which exists worldwide, is a great pity. It has
come to a point that in Europe they have published explanatory
guides to seals, and even a document from WWF/Switzerland
comparing and judging the existing seals by its own criteria. |
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what is the solution? |
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I
believe that there are two solutions and options: one internal and
the other external. The first, and certainly the best, thinking of
the democratic philosophy of our movement, would be to bring
together all the certifying agencies operating in the country and
establish a platform of practices common to all, in order to
ensure a uniform base for our agriculture and to inform consumers,
providing total transparency.
The other solution would be finally to obtain from the Ministry of
Agriculture a series of normative measures defining the general
operating outline of organic agriculture, and drawn up by means of
a dialogue with the certifying agencies with IFOAM credentials.
This would also permit the organic movement to come out of the
relative clandestinity in which it is currently situated, without
its own legislation or official recognition.
I
would like to emphasize that the important thing is to leave the
producer ready and qualified to attend both the internal and
external markets, so it is essential that the norms are absolutely
compatible with IFOAM norms. |
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| But
the organic movement is not that clandestine, and the consumer is
more and more alert to food quality!... |
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The
interesting thing is that conventional agriculture and livestock
breeding is very much aware of these demands, and while companies
producing defensive agrochemicals seek increasingly lower use of
products with the lowest environmental impact, companies linked to
the food sector are talking about the trackability of the raw
materials they use. The consumer’s influence does exist, even if
it is a bit late ...
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Are
organic agriculture and livestock breeding growing more quickly
than the organization of organic norms in Brazil?
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The demand for
organic products, especially in Europe, is such that we have seen
very strong growth in Brazil, in the attempt to meet that demand.
The norms will still take some time, but the ever increasing
weight of exports of organic products will force the institutions
to normalize this situation very quickly. |
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