With Emater, land reform settlers invest in livestock in Ipixuna do Pará
Technical Assistance Company contributes to rural producers accessing the National Program for Strengthening Family Agriculture (Pronaf)
With rural credit from a project developed by the local office of the Technical Assistance and Rural Extension Company of the State of Pará (Emater) in Ipixuna do Pará, on the Rio Capim, livestock farmer Maria Gorette de Almeida, 66, from the federal settlement União I, has just managed to sextuple her beef cattle herd at her Sítio Oliveira this September. She invested R$ 50,000 in the purchase of 20 nelore breed animals. The funds Maria obtained from line A of the National Program for Strengthening Family Agriculture (Pronaf), through the Bank of the Amazon (Basa).
“Emater helps a lot. It helped with this loan, for example. My idea with the 'white cattle' livestock is to breed, to increase, so that it will be profitable from now on,” says Maria Almeida. She represents a contingent of land reform settlers, whose assistance has been intensified by Emater, in partnership with the Municipal Secretary of Agriculture, Livestock and Production (Semap), with the aim of disseminating technologies through rural credit.
This week, a task force with Emater and the City Hall recorded the expressed interest of at least 30 families from the Candiru and União settlements for public financing of dairy cattle, of the girolando breed, as well as beekeeping with stingless bees (Apis mellifera) and planting açaí of the BRS-Pai D’égua and Pará varieties.
The ongoing proposals consider the approval by the end of the year of individual contracts of R$ 50,000 by Pronaf A, with Basa. The team's journey also identified 10 immediate demands for national registrations of family agriculture (cafs), already in issuance.
“The visceral role of Emater includes physical presence, bringing information directly into the settlements, presenting rights that people often do not know - this is to honor existence and value the daily lives of farmers, and thus we bridge to technological updates and scientific appropriations. Being together with Semap is the differential, because it reinforces our operational capacity,” points out the head of the local Emater office in Ipixuna, agronomist Cleyton Jerdan Damasceno, a specialist in Oilseed Production for Biodiesel.
Text by Aline Miranda
