Guarantee of healthy food on the table, Emater Pará Seal will be launched tomorrow at COP 30
Consumers will have a reliable reference regarding the origin and quality of the product purchased from rural producers in the Pará territory
The Government of Pará, through the Technical Assistance and Rural Extension Company of the State of Pará (Emater-Pará), will launch the Emater Pará Seal tomorrow (21), at the Agri Zone (Agri Talks Arena), at Embrapa, during the programming of COP 30 (30th World Conference on Climate Change).
In a market where pesticides increasingly invade supermarket shelves and even in open-air markets, the public that acquires products from family farmers with the Emater Seal will have a differential on the table: high-quality products, free of pesticides and produced sustainably, without harming the environment, ensuring climate justice and food security.
Many artisan women, traditional indigenous and quilombola communities, young entrepreneurs, family farmers, and extractivists, for example, compete for space with large companies and from now on will have greater visibility, enhancing development, job creation, and increasing the income of these rural families, ensuring greater economic development within their production chains and in the market.
Credibility - According to Karine Sarraf, deputy supervisor of the Regional Office of the Islands, of Emater-Pará, the Seal on the family farmer's product will add greater social value to the monetary gains of the family farmer.
“The presence of our seal on a product will give credibility to the origin in a traditional community, from a small producer, from a quilombola, from an indigenous community, from a woman, a young person, among so many others we serve,” said Karine.
She also noted that "the seal will promote development in the countryside, which helps keep families within their productive units and will bring a social appeal in favor of those who have a smaller scale of production and cannot compete with large companies in the formal market. This seal will increase the visibility of these people and will be the differential in quality.”
Sustainability - According to Sarraf, the public values products made by family farmers because they are of quality, even being produced on a smaller scale, which does not compromise integrity, care, and quality, as they are produced sustainably, without harming the environment.
“Many make a point of buying and acquiring products from this origin because they want to help maintain this production. With the Emater Seal, the farmer will be able to access market niches that they normally do not reach. But many people prefer to buy from them because they know that the products are free of pesticides and are made using methods that ensure environmental sustainability, in addition to helping to maintain these families, this tradition, this culture. And the Emater Seal comes to reinforce all of this,” emphasized Karine Sarraf.
The seal, Emater emphasizes, is a visual identity inscribed on labels of products made by family farmers from Pará assisted by the state public technical assistance agency. The goal is to guarantee consumers the origin of a rural producer, assisted by Emater, free of charge and with technical quality.
“The importance of the seal lies in the emphasis given to the technical assistance and rural extension services developed by Emater-Pará and at the same time promotes the visibility of a federal public policy, to which we are linked, guaranteeing free support services to family farmers, in our case, here in the state of Pará, in all 144 municipalities,” explained Cristiane Corrêa, technical coordinator of Emater-Pará.
Categories - The Emater Seal will be voluntary and free for any beneficiaries or organizations/associations/cooperatives assisted and registered by the public company and listed in the Annual Program of Technical Assistance and Rural Extension (Proater). It will have four categories: well-being, flavor, art, and talent.
“The farmer will request a document through our website, either as an individual or legal entity. In this document, they will attach copies of the documents (Individual Taxpayer Registration or Legal Entity Registration), a copy of the artisan's card, and send us the proposal, with information about their product, as well as the intended category. Then, they must deliver the documentation to the nearest local office to their property. After 30 days, they will receive the seal with a registration number and specific QR Code for their product,” clarified the technical coordinator.
The “Flavor” category will be for identifying food products from the beneficiaries' production; “Art” for identifying handicraft and manual work products; “Well-being” for identifying hygiene, cosmetics, and herbal products; and “Talent” for identifying the services offered, in addition to the Emater Seal, intended for identifying productive units.
Traceability - All seals issued by Emater-Pará will have a QR Code and a serial number. "Both the QR Code and the serial number guarantee the traceability of the product. Through these codes, the general public will be able to access and know where these products are made and by whom they are made," said Karine Sarraf.
She stated that "the idea is to provide transparency to the product and the producer. If you go to a fair or supermarket, for example, and see the Emater Seal on a product, you will be able to access this QR Code and know the entire origin of that product, who produces it, the address of the property, this productive unit assisted by Emater, and all the necessary information about the product supplier.”
60 years - The seal will be instituted through an ordinance issued by the president of the company, Joniel Abreu, to promote the strengthening, identification, and dissemination of social and productive identities. “It will be a milestone in the history of Emater-Pará, which will complete 60 years in December,” he said.
“Having our seal implemented on products made by family farmers, with QR Code, serial number, presenting the entire origin of that product is a demonstration of how Emater reinvents and updates itself in the face of technological changes, reaffirming our commitment, as the Government of Pará and Emater, to those who most need this strengthening, whether in improving quality of life, in the visibility of these products, including this producer in a fairer market,” emphasized Joniel Abreu.
