|
 Brazil should institute in the next few months a federal government stamp that will allow consumers to identify organic products on supermarket shelves. The measure should be established in the first half of this year.
Tereza Cristina Saminêz, the acting coordinator of Agro ecology of the Brazilian Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply is the one promising this,
According to Saminêz, organic agriculture is important to the economy of Brazil, mainly in the social and environmental aspects. "With regard to management, the producer aims at minimizing the impact of productive activities on the environment, obtaining a different product that provides him with greater economic return," she emphasized.
We plant without pesticides or chemical fertilizer, the organic food won greater space among consumers, as it is considered a more evolved, humane and ecological system for production of food as it does not intoxicate the rural product, does not pollute the soil and does not generate food with harmful residues.
Producers have up to December 28 2009 to adapt to the system, as the decree regulating organic products, published in December 2007, established a grace period of two years for farmers to adapt.
In January 2008, the Brazilian federal government launched the Agriculture and Livestock Plan, allocating 1 billion reais (US$ 639.3 million at the time) for farmers who adhere to sustainability programs of the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply.
The aim was to devise sustainable solutions for national agriculture and propagate socially just agribusiness that respects natural resources.
The highlights among the ministry's programs are those encouraging integrated production, developing organic farming, and programs turned to crop-husbandry-fruit farming integration.
Regarding the programs, the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply has already approved, for instance, technical norms for integrated production of 18 different varieties of fruit. There are rules for training farmers, soil handling, disease and plague control, residue analysis, harvesting techniques, transport and other aspects of the production chain. The program also includes tubers, grain, coffee and flowers.
The incentive program to organic farming will be based on agro-ecologic principles. The sector took a large leap forward in 2007, when a decree was issued regulating organic foods, thus enabling product certification. The creation of a bank for basic seeds of leguminous plants, to be used in green fertilization, was another successful initiative. Established in 2007, the bank has already produced 16 tons of seeds.
The system for farming-husbandry-fruit farming integration offers better income alternatives to rural producers, thanks to diversification of production. It proposes adoption of different forestry and agro-forestry production systems within a single area. It is possible to combine fibre and wood extraction with production systems for grain, meat, milk and agroenergy.
All products involved in sustainable production are certified by organizations accredited with the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply, and the National Institute of Metrology, Standardization and Industrial Quality (Inmetro). Certification ensures product credibility in the market.
Anba
 |
Subscribe to this comment's feed
The small, coastal town of Condé is located just a twenty minute's drive from João Pessoa, the capital of Paraíba. The Northeast of Brazil has historically been a place of encounter and mixing between peoples. For millenia groups of indigenous people fished, farmed, migrated and sometimes fought along this large, fertile area. 
The Brazilian diplo-MÁ-cia (bad diplomacy) carries on its accelerated course towards the non-acknowledgment of human rights, although sometimes it takes pleasure in saying that it does precisely the opposite. The visit of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is another example of a diplomatic omission that verges on hypocrisy. 
On July 4, 2006, representatives of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay met in Caracas to sign the protocol for the entrance of Venezuela into the Southern Common Market (Mercosur). After two and a half years, the protocol was approved by the legislative bodies of Argentina and Uruguay, and as of now it may be only days away from being ratified by the continent's economic megalith, Brazil. 
Some sectors of the fight against AIDS have suggested that Thabo Mbeki, the former president of South Africa, committed genocide through his absence from the fight against the illness in his country throughout his two terms. 
One hundred and eleven years after Brazil abolished slavery, the number of workers deprived of their freedom is still huge. They raise cattle, produce charcoal, sugar cane or timber. Some of them, most undocumented Bolivians, work in basements of small apparel factories in São Paulo and other metropolis. 
On November 7, 2009 a few friends and I had an opportunity to take a look inside a Brazilian jail outside the city of Rio de Janeiro. We were able to take some amateur footage of our experience on video (see link below). It's no surprise, of course, that the typical Brazilian jail lacks some of the functionality of those in North America or Europe, but our experience that day was quite shocking. 
Depletion of the Amazon Rainforest is not a new concern facing environmentalists, biologists, ecologists, and a growing number of the Amazonian indigenous peoples. For decades they have feared for the fate of the world's most biologically diverse and species-rich hothouse. 
Geisy Arruda made history this week in Brazil, but for all the wrong reasons. What began as a poorly planned fashion statement has become a worldwide tale. Geisy decided to wear a pink mini-dress to her private college in São Paulo state, and after that, all hell broke loose. 
The push of vigilante groups in Rio de Janeiro's favelas (shantytowns) in the last three years is the most important and alarming information of the just-released study by the Rio de Janeiro University's Violence Research Center (Nupev-Uerj). 
A dispute over drug trafficking territory in Rio de Janeiro has intensified lately, leaving in its wake unprecedented acts of violence, such as the downing of a police helicopter in the northern zone of the city on October 17. Three policemen died and another two were injured. This event has drawn the attention of the international media, who are raising the issue of public security for the 2016 Olympics to be held in Rio.