In Marajó, Emater strengthens the açaí production chain in the municipality of Salvaterra
Working Group brings together efforts with producer cooperatives and institutional partners for better product quality and marketing
With the support of the local office of the Technical Assistance and Rural Extension Company of the State of Pará (Emater) in Salvaterra, in Marajó, families working with açaí are creating strategies to organize the production chain, focusing on product quality and marketing.
Representatives from the Government of Pará, federal government, city hall, planters, extractivists, processors, and peconheiros will meet for the second time at Sítio Manoel Domingos, in Vila Monsarás, at Km 9 of the PA-154 highway, on August 19. The agenda for the meeting includes actions aimed at developing the açaí production chain. The first meeting in this regard took place on the 7th of this month.
Among the urgent issues mediated by the Working Group (GT), with the participation of Emater and partners such as the State University of Pará (Uepa) and the Municipal Secretary of Agriculture and Supply (Saab), are fair negotiations between producers and peconheiros hired by day or season and sanitary treatment for the seed and pulp of the fruit.
The head of the local Emater office in Salvaterra, agronomist Orlando Lameira, a specialist in Georeferencing of Rural Properties, highlights: "Our aim is to organize, structure, and systematize the production chain, focusing on the quality of the product in natura and processed, and as a result, supply primarily the local market and perhaps the neighboring municipalities," he states.
In addition to technical visits and the issuance of rural environmental registrations (cars) and national registrations of family agriculture (cafs), Osmar Lameira points out the encouragement of cooperatives as one of Emater's incisive actions: "In order to ensure quality in delivery to the final consumer and in the context of basic and applied scientific research, we are also, together with Uepa, conducting microbiological analyses of the processed fruit in the processors and, together with Embrapa [Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation], promoting training in good practices," he says.
Mobilization
At Sítio Manoel Domingos, the venue for the meetings, Emater, Embrapa, and the Brazilian Service of Support to Micro and Small Enterprises (Sebrae) are establishing a Manejaí Center, as an associated initiative of the Sustenta and Inova/Bem Diverso projects. Scheduled to open in September, the space will primarily serve to concentrate dialogues.
The reference property belongs to the couple Camila, 36, and Ronildo Pacheco, 43. There are more than a thousand açaí trees of upland variety. The family also maintains a native açaí grove from the floodplain of a branch of the Condeixa River.
“Emater has collaborated with us solidly, because their involvement is from mobilization to monitoring with management and everything, including guidance for managing the enterprise and facilitation for us, producers, to reach consensus with the peconheiros regarding service pricing,” reports Camila.
Working Group
The GT of the açaí production chain in Salvaterra is represented by Emater, the International Cooperation Center for Agronomic Research for Development (Cirad), the Cooperative of Agricultural and Artisanal Fishing of Monsarás (Coopapam), the Açaí Marajoara Cooperative (Coopam), Embrapa, the Arthur Bernardes Foundation (Funarbe), the Amazon Environmental Research Institute (Ipam), Saab, the State Secretary of Education of Pará (Seduc), and Uepa.
Text by Aline Miranda
