Integrating Biodiversity with Food Security in Brazil

Editor's Notes

1. The Project “Mainstreaming biodiversity conservation and sustainable use for improved human nutrition and wellbeing”, also known as “Biodiversity for Food and Nutrition – BFN” is led by Brazil, Kenya, Sri Lanka and Turkey. It is coordinated by Bioversity International, with implementation support from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), and aims“to strengthen the conservation and sustainable management of agricultural biodiversity through mainstreaming into national and global nutrition, food and livelihood security strategies and programmes.”
2. A brief historical revision: The Brazilian Agriculture Largely dependent on exotic species. Most of our staple foods are of exotic origin The Great Paradox Brazil is considered as having one of the largest biodiversity of the world (15 to 20%). This biodiversity, however, has not been much explored. Simplification x Diversification Traditional and indigenous foods have been neglected and forgotten, even though they are more nutritious and better for our health than modern food traded on global market. This situation contributes to narrowing down our options and imposes to our society a simplified diet, instead of allowing for the improvement of a more diversified diet. New options The country has also hundreds of species that are already been used at local and regional levels.
3. The BFN Project in Brazil - Institutional arrangement. In Brazil, the BFN project aims to show the existing link beetween biodiversity, food and nutrition, by integrating existing Federal Initiatives related to biodiversity conservation and food security, that were not integrated before. The initiatives partners of BFN are: Food Acquisition Program (Programa de Aquisição de Alimentos – PAA); National School Feeding Program (Programa Nacional de Alimentação Escolar – PNAE); National Food and Nutrition Policy (Política Nacional de Alimentação e Nutrição – PNAN); National Plan for the Promotion of Sociobiodiversity Chains (Plano Nacional de Promoção das Cadeias de Produtos da Sociobiodiversidade – PNPSB, which includes the Minnimum Price Guarantee Policy - Política de Garantia de Preços Mínimos para Produtos da Sociobiodiversidade – PGPMBio); Pro- Orgânico. Representants from these initiatives are part of the National Steering Committee. Financial Manager is Funbio. O Project Coordination Unit é a Gerência do Lidio.
4. The BFN prioritized 70 native fruits species previously identified by the Plants for the future initiative. They are all native underutilized species – Species of actual or potential economical value – used at local or regional level Nutritional characterization of these 70 fruit species is being carried out in partnership with Federal Universities in the 5 Brazilian geopolitical regions. 3 of the Universities are linked to PNAE (CECANE). This nutritional data will be used as subsidies to influence public policies and programs, by demonstrating their nutritional potential.
5. One of our major constraints relates to the storage of nutritional data. From 2015, all the nutritional data provided by the BFN Project will be available online on the SiBBR platform: Information System of Brazilian Biodiversity. This data will provide evidence for the inclusion/strengthening of native biodiversity on public policies, scientific research, etc
6. PNPSB and PGPM-Bio objective is to develop integrated actions for promoting and strengthening the role of sociobiodiversity product chains in building sustainable markets. Moreover, it aims to ensure environmental conservation and income generation by means of the productive inclusion of traditional peoples and communities, as well as family farmers. PNPSB provides technical assistance and PGPMBio guarantees the income for the farmers/gatherers, by complementing the price paid for the goods. PNPSB major actions include the promotion of public policies, such as credit delivery mechanisms, technical assistance and agricultural extension, markets and marketing tools, social and environmental added value and income-generating activities, food security, enhancement of social and productive organization, and business management. The PNPSB is a joint coordination effort by the Brazilian Ministry of Agrarian Development, Ministry of the Environment, Ministry of Social Development and Fight Against Hunger and the National Supply Company. PNPSB is a policy strategy supported by relevant public authorities, civil society, private sector, financial institutions and the German Development Cooperation, GIZ in Brasil. **The food species of the PNPSB are part of the BFN Project (nutritional characterization) In PGPMBio, the government sets the minimum price of products based on production costs and market research. The grant mechanism is a supplement to the government that occurs when the market pay an amount below to the minimum price set.
7. **The food species of the PNPSB were circulated in red. All of those are part of the BFN Project.
8. (PGPM) \ establishes minimum prices for all kinds of foods, based on market prices and production costs. Government complements the price received on the sale, if the sale price is lower than the minimum price established. These are the species included on PGPMBio até o momento, not all of them edible (green strikes). Price evaluation for 10 other chains are being conducted by CONAB. BFN will provide nutritional data.
9. The beneficiaries of the PPA are family farmers and people in situation of food insecurity. Conab prioritizes projects that have the participation of quilombolas, fisherman, indians, gatherers and other traditional communities.
10. PNAE helps the Family Household Agriculture, since 30% of the money transferred by the Federal Government has to be spent with them, thus promoting native species from agrobiodiversity and sociobiodiversity, instead of buying from big supermarkets and industrialized foods
11. BFN is working closely with PNAE to develop capacities and raising awareness of technical personnel for the importance of including more foods from native biodiversity on school meals. The project is providing technical assistance and organized a workshop in 2014 with FNDE technical personnel, aiming to promote a more efective insertion of biodiversity on PNAE and deepen discussions between BFN and FNDE. The Project is also developing an online course about BFN directed at FNDE and CECANEs personnel. CECANEs work directly with the municipalities and will be able to advise Nutritionists, Cooks and Managers for the inclusion of native and regional products on school meals.
12. BFN is also working with the FNDE funded project “Educating with School Gardens and Gastronomy”,developed by CET/UnB. This project aims to rescue the food culture and provide a more dynamic scholar curricula, using school gardens as an educational tool, promoting the contact of the children with the food and production process. BFN is promoting the partnership of this project with EMBRAPA (Dr. Nuno Madeira), that will provide technical support to CET/UNB, seeds and seedlings to some schools. BFN team is also working on the revision of materials and plans to include Tree nurserys on the project and provide seedlings of native fruit species to schools.
13. Within PNAN, the BFN team is working the State University of Rio de Janeiro on the revision of the training materials distributed to primary care teams that work on the Health in School Program, to give more emphasis to the importance of foods from native biodiversity. In this program, primary care teams (nurses, nutritionists, physicians, dentists) go to school and give lessons to children, evaluate their nutritional status, etc, instead of waiting for children to come to Primary Care Units (postos de saúde).
14. The BFN team had direct influence in two very important multistakeholder policy platforms: the National Plan of Agroecology and Organic Production with the insertion of xxx And the multiyear budget planning, coordinated by the Ministry of Planning for a 4 year period. The action xxx were included in the objective xxx and, next year, Brazil will start the new process for the period of 2016-2019 and we will have one more opportunity to raise awarereness on policy makers about the importance of BFN.
15. Brazil started the revision process of its NBSAP in 2011 and in Brazil the NBSAP is like an umbrella with various instruments under it. The revision process is still going on and up to know, the BFN team in Brazil was able to influence in two of the NBSAP`s instruments: including BFN actions on the Governmental Action Plan and with the monitoring of the national targets, proposing an indicator for national target 14 – related to ecosystem services, health and well being – and 1 indicator for national target 13.
16. MMA/MAPA - Three Gastronomic Stalls - tasting of snacks prepared with native species of the Brazilian Cerrado - “10th Week of Organic Food” in Brasilia, Brazil (Mai-Jun/14) “VIII Meeting and Exhibition of the People from the Biome Cerrado” - six workshops showing how to prepare dishes with ingredients from native species of the brazilian cerrado under studies by the BFN Project The Ministry of the Environment together with the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Suppy organized three Gastronomic Stalls for the tasting of snacks prepared with species of the Brazilian Cerrado, on 30 June and 1 July during the “10th Week of Organic Food” in Brasilia, DF. The goal was to publicize and promote the use of native species of the Brazilian flora linked to the BFN Project, particularly those of the Cerrado biome. The event involved the participation of more than 1,500 people tasting the delights of Brazil’s biodiversity and it turned out to be the largest of this kind in Brasília. The Ministry of the Environment also supported the “VIII Meeting and Exhibition of the People from the Biome Cerrado” that took place during 5 to 8 June at the Cultural Complex Funarte in Brasilia, DF. During this event, the Ministry of the Environment organized six workshops with the participation of 30 to 40 people each, showing how to prepare certain dishes with ingredients from species of the BFN Project specifically from the Cerrado biome. Goal - to publicize and promote the use of native species of the Brazilian flora linked to the BFN Project, particularly those of the Cerrado biome.
17. Gastronomic events were also organized in Porto Alegre – with again more than 1500 people participating and tasting native delights
18. And also in Goiania, at a shopping Mall
19. The Project also organized, together with the Brasilia Botanical Garden, a weekly fair with native products, organic products, handicraft articles and cultural shows. It occurs every Saturday and is the first permanent fair to be held at a Botanical Garden. All of these events aim to publicize and promote the use of native species of the Brazilian flora land raise awareness on the importance and diversity of native products. “People value what they know, if the population does not know what exists they will never cry over the loss of biodiversity”.