News

BRAZIL

Budding organic market

Small family farms are an endangered species in Brazil, as in many countries of the developing world. Saving farmers from the threat of extinction - or migration to cities where their skills cannot be used and they lose their connection to the land - is the mission of ARCO Contestado, a regional marketing agency based in Mafra, south-eastern Brazil.

In the Matra region, 1,300 family farmers in 17 highland municipalities are switching to new crops and animal products and gaining in skills and strength. The farmers are the vanguard of a successful local economic development project. By producing specialised vegetables and foods, the farmers have opened up new markets, getting their crops and products on to the shelves of major supermarket chains in southern Brazil and making their small plots much more profitable.

Products include bottled pickles and beets, Strawberries, organic beans (dried without using toxins) and honey. Mafra honey is considered to be one of the best in Brazil because bees can feed on the wide variety of flowers found in the region. Twenty farmer associations are marketing honey, and ARCO Contestado is laying the groundwork for opening export markets by obtaining approval from the USA and Germany. For the time being, the farmers will continue to sell the honey in Brazil, where the price is favourable, and will only export if the international price improves. Lucy Conger, Micro Enterprise Americas

BULGARIA

Beekeepers are considering a development programme that would help them overcome some of the problems in the sector. The three year long programme would include six criteria under which the country could apply for EU subsidy. Currently beekeeping in Bulgaria is facing problems due to bad climate and low purchase prices abroad. Gancho Ganev, head of the Bulgarian Association of Beekeepers, has pointed out that producers in Bulgaria make only US$0.26 (€0.25) from each kilogram of honey.

Bulgaria produces about 9,000 tonnes of honey per year, with 80% exported. Due to a lack of regulations, some of the honey offered on the local market may not be natural, Ganev also revealed. This is one of the main issues that the Association aims to overcome with the adoption of the national improvement programme.

Business: 31 March 2006, www.novinite.com

CENTRAL AMERICA

The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) announced the approval of a US$1,570,000 (€1,223,200) grant from its Multilateral Investment Fund (MIF) for a regional project to strengthen the financial management of small scale farmer organisations in Central American and southern Mexico. EARTH University and EcoLogic Finance Inc will carry out the project with additional cash and in-kind contributions totalling US$779,000 (€606,900). Most of these resources will be donated by the Starbucks Coffee Company, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters and the JP Morgan Chase Foundation.

The project, which will be executed in two phases, will involve organisations of producers of cocoa, coffee, fruit, honey, vegetables and handicrafts in Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and the Mexican states of Chiapas, Oaxaca and Veracruz. The goal is to strengthen these organisations’ financial management, a weak point that hampers their growth and their business relations with importers and exporters.

Peter Bate

wwẇjadb.org/news

HONDURAS

Want power? Plant trees!

Large parts of the 8,630 km2 watershed of the EI Cajon reservoir had been denuded of vegetation, allowing heavy rains to wash precious soil down the hillsides and into the streams. Now, the watershed is regaining its health. What has been good for nature has also been a boon to farmers, who depend on the soil for their livelihoods, and the residents of the region's towns and cities, who depend on healthy upstream ecosystems to provide them with water. The concrete arc dam holding back the El Cajon waters is the largest in Central America and deep inside an adjacent mountain is a powerhouse generating 60% of the electricity used in Honduras.

The EI Cajon Watershed Environmental Management Programme began in 1995 with the help of $20,400,000 (€15,900,000) IDB a bank loan. Local communities have produced 24,2 million tree seedlings and reforested 13,700 hectares. More than 7,000 farm families are applying soil management and conservation measures on 10,819 ha. These include planting permanent crops such as fruit trees and using better tilling methods for annual crops.

Jorge Palma has directed the Programme since 1996. He was happy to spend an afternoon visiting a remote village to get to know a group of beekeepers and to see if the programme could work with them. He says: "We want to help honey producers, because their bees need the flowering trees, so people want to preserve the trees”.

Roger Hamilton, IDB online

SWAZILAND

Training for farmers

Michael Zwane, Director of the Small and Medium Enterprise Unit has stated that there is a need to establish a honey processing plant in Swaziland.

"it would have to be strategically located so that all beekeepers can have easy access, and the plant should be in a good infrastructural place", he said. A report submitted by the Ministry of Agriculture and Co-operatives, suggests that Pigg's Peak was a recommended destination because a factory is already available there. The report explained that the project stands to benefit the Swazi nation for the following reasons:

- Facilitating rural commercialisation of local products.

- Improving agricultural productivity, including production of by-products.

Providing diversity options for farmers.

- Adding value to farm products.

- Creating stable employment, especially to rural communities.

- Earning foreign currency from export.

- Developing local, branded products.

- Improving profitability status.

Currently beekeepers in Swaziland are able to supply 40% of the market and the remaining local demand is fulfilled by honey from South Africa.

Mbongiseni Ndzimandze, Swazi Observer www.observer.org.sz

VIETNAM

Recovery for forests

Vietnam has set a target of 43% forest cover by 2010 and the total area covered by forests has risen to 37.8% of total land area, compared with 36.7% in 2004. However, the Ministry of Agriculture & Rural Development (MARD) States that the quality of the forests has been deteriorating and natural growth pockets have become isolated. More than two thirds of the country's forests are poor, or are still in the process of rehabilitation. MARD said the Law on Forest Protection and Development, which came into effect in April 2005, has helped slow deforestation. In 2005 the government gave VND12bil (US$750,000/ €584,500) to mountainous provinces for the planting of forests, trees for timber, and trees for paper materials. As a result, some 1,700,000 m3 of timber were produced last year, a slight increase compared with 2004.

However, large areas of land that could be used for lucrative crops such as cassava, cashew nuts and rubber were still being denuded of trees in the southern provinces.

The prolonged crought last year resulted in 1,148 forest fires that destroyed 5,765 ha of forests and 1,500 ha of natural forest. Most ofthe fires, which occurred in the provinces of Kon Tum, Dien Bien, Long An, Kien Giang and Lam Dong, were said to be caused by slash-and-burn agriculture and bush burning to collect honey.

Source: VielNamNet Bridge in NWFP-Digest-L No 2/06