Brazil's leading role in the sustainable production of healthy and safe food will be the focus of the participation of the Minister of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply, Tereza Cristina, in the 85th International Green Week, taking place this week in Berlin. The Ministry presented this Wednesday (15), at a seminar at the Brazilian Embassy, a document with guidelines promoting the Brazilian experience, which adds increased efficiency with respect to one of the most rigorous environmental legislations in the world. The guidelines will also be debated during Green Week, which starts tomorrow (16) and will bring together around 200 ministers and secretaries of agriculture from around the world.
In the area of innovation and sustainable production, Brazil has developed a production model based on sustainable tropical technologies that combine increased productivity and mitigation of carbon emissions. The country implemented the Low Carbon Agriculture Plan (ABC Plan), with results that are equivalent to the absorption of at least 200 million tons of carbon dioxide since 2012. The ABC Plan resulted in an intervention in 59 million hectares with sustainable agricultural technologies , which represents 25% of the areas occupied by Brazilian agriculture. The large-scale dissemination of these sustainable agricultural practices is one of the main challenges to be overcome in the coming years.
The document was presented today by Mapa's Socio-Environmental Affairs advisor, João Adrien Fernandes. Minister Tereza Cristina participated in the closing of the seminar. The Ministry's secretaries, who are part of the mission, participated in several panels: Eduardo Sampaio (Agricultural Policy) in the panel on the development of integrated solutions and partnerships for global sustainable production; Fernando Camargo (Innovation, Rural Development and Irrigation) in the panel on bioeconomy to leverage sustainable development; and Fernando Schwanke (Family Agriculture and Cooperatives) in the panel on strategic governance and effective use of land and their impacts on sustainability. The event was organized by the Brazilian ambassador to Germany, Roberto Jaguaribe.
In her speech, the minister highlighted that the world is facing two global challenges: food security and environmental sustainability. “It is of fundamental importance that these two issues are evaluated together. It is not possible to talk only about environmental conservation, without taking into account the need to feed the world population”, he said.
Tereza Cristina highlighted that challenges must be overcome based on science and verifiable data. “All human activity generates impact. This includes agricultural production. The solution is not to stop producing, but to improve so that this production is increasingly sustainable”, he stated, adding that this is one of his management’s priorities. “We have already made a lot of progress, but we recognize that there is room for improvement”, he added.
The Brazilian government expanded the importance of sustainability in agriculture by incorporating competencies and responsibilities that were in other ministries into the Ministry of Agriculture. The implementation of the Forest Code, the Land Governance Policy, a new vision for Family Farming and Technical Assistance and Rural Extension, the reincorporation of Aquaculture and Fisheries into the ministry, allow us to rethink policies and actions aimed at sustainability in a integrated and coordinated.
Land regularization in the country will involve a commitment, on the part of landowners, to the implementation of the Forest Code. Areas located in conservation units, indigenous territories or quilombolas will not be titled. The project will especially benefit those settled by agrarian reform. In 50 years, only 6% of the 974 thousand settled families received the land title.
The productive inclusion of small properties is also one of the Brazilian government's actions for the sustainability of agriculture. Brazil has more than 5.07 million rural properties and a significant part of rural producers, mainly small, medium and family ones, are on the margins of the development taking place in agriculture.
Under the three pillars of Innovation and Sustainable Production, Land and Environmental Regularization and Productive Inclusion, the government is adopting public policies that prioritize income generation in the countryside, ensuring the inclusion of these small producers in local markets or in global production chains. In addition to measures to strengthen cooperativism and other forms of organization, the dissemination of technologies, access to credit policies and rural insurance, the Ministry of Agriculture acts to encourage value-added production and differentiation of the production agenda, such as handcrafted articles.
Sustainable agricultural production, adopted in the country, serves an increasingly larger niche for supplying a population that values sustainability and traceability of the food it consumes.
Source: agrolink
