By Raquel Gurgel* | 22 March, 2024

In tobacco-producing areas, seed fairs can help drive the protection of agrobiodiversity and the search for alternatives. Photo: Marcelo Moreno/CETAB

The day breaks chilly, shrouded in dense fog that barely allows the contours of houses and vegetation to be seen in the community of Invernada, in the municipality of Rio Azul, state of Paraná, Brazil. The paths connecting rural properties are empty and silent. But within a few hours, the scene changes entirely: the mist dissipates, the sun shines warmly, and cars, vans, and buses start coming from different directions and filling the parking lot of the local church. The movement is due to the 10th Seed Fair of the municipality, which grows stronger with each edition and, in 2023, took place in August.

The multiplication of heirloom seeds is among the primary ways the community preserves its agrobiodiversity: "My parents were farmers their whole life and always took care of heirloom seeds. They grew maize, beans, potatoes, rice, cassava, wheat, and rye for the family's consumption," recalls Maria Terezinha de Oliveira Skrzcezkiwski, a 71-year-old farmer who has maintained this tradition and is one of the seed guardians in the area.

Invernada began to establish itself in the early 20th century with the arrival of Polish and Italian immigrants to the region. For a long time, families produced all the food they needed, in addition to mate tea. In collective mills, wheat and rye turned into flour, maize into hominy, and rice was hulled. There were also communal areas for animal husbandry.

But things changed from the 1960s onwards when tobacco production began to establish itself in the region. Large companies like Souza Cruz (now BAT Brasil) began to hire family farmers to grow tobacco, often leading them to become indebted to the tobacco industry: companies would provide loans to farmers, sell them seeds, chemical fertilizers, and pesticides, and commit to buying the tobacco leaves produced. Farmers were responsible for cultivating tobacco with all the recommended inputs and selling the production at the low prices set by the companies at the end of the harvest.

Today, about 120 families live in Invernada, and tobacco is one of their main sources of income, as in neighboring communities – Rio Azul is the municipality with the highest tobacco production in the state.

Land size: one of the challenges when seeking alternatives

Substituting tobacco for healthier crops is challenging, particularly for families living on small plots of land. Héloïse Faivre and Rachel Amouroux, agricultural engineering students from France, spent several months in Rio Azul studying three communities – including Invernada – and noted that smaller properties primarily produced tobacco. 

"Tobacco generates a higher added value per hectare than other crops, so for them, it is still the best way to generate income. Everyone has a backyard with food for self-consumption, but people usually don't have time to handle food crops during the tobacco harvest season. These families also don't have enough land to grow maize for animals, so they have fewer animal husbandry," Ms. Faivre notes. This is the situation of a significant portion of the population in Invernada, who live on small plots of land, between five and seven hectares.

Despite the difficulties, crop diversification and seed rescue and conservation have taken place over the past 20 years. Two factors have been fundamental to this: community organization and public policies supporting food production and the establishment of local markets, such as the Food Acquisition Program (PAA) and the National School Feeding Program (PNAE) – these are programs that purchase food from family farmers and distribute it to people in vulnerable situations, schools, and other institutions. Their objectives include promoting food and nutritional security, and rural productive inclusion.

"Invernada has always been a very organized community, with seed guardians and a strong presence of peasant family agriculture. People have always had the habit of gathering and exchanging seeds, which is great," observes Luiza Damigo, a technical advisor for AS-PTA, an organization that has been working with the community since 2000.

In 1989, the Association of Rural Producers of Invernada (APRI), which now has 80 member families, and the Rural Workers Union of Rio Azul were established. To access food marketing markets, they are integrated into the Agroindustrial Cooperative of Family Farmers of Rio Azul (COAFRA) and the Mixed Cooperative of Family Agriculture Diversification of Rio Azul (COMDAF). There is also the Terra Nossa Group of organic farmers, which currently has three associates with certified organic properties in Invernada.

These forms of cooperation among families are important to establish markets for food crops and, in many cases, to reduce production costs. "The association in Invernada has machinery that everyone can use," exemplifies Héloïse. According to Ms. Damigo, community organization is also important to facilitate access to public policies.

Women's groups stimulate crop diversification

Less than 100 kilometers from Invernada, it's also a community organization – specifically, a women organization – that is fostering the promotion of alternatives to tobacco cultivation in the community of Passo do Tio Paulo, in the municipality of Palmeira, Paraná state. "We used to plant 250,000 tobacco plants [per harvest], but it turned out that all the money went to pay for the costs of that production. Expenses were very high," reports Sandra Mara Ponijaleki Lopes, a 35-year-old former tobacco farmer.

On Sandra Lopes' property, tobacco growing has been replaced by food crops such as arracachas, potatoes, cassava, vegetables, and strawberries. Photo: Giorgia Prates / AS-PTA

Five years ago, she decided, along with her mother and husband, to start planting arracacha. It was a real turnaround since at that time the family did not plant any food crops – not even for their own consumption. "It was a shot in the dark; we didn't know if we would have anywhere to sell the production," she recalls.

But the idea caught on: they soon began supplying arracacha to markets in Palmeira and some neighboring cities. Ms. Lopes also joined the Cooperative of Family Agriculture of Palmeira (CAFPAL) and started delivering to the National School Feeding Program. Seeing that both the cooperative and local markets needed various other products, the family diversified crops and started growing cassava, potatoes, various vegetables, and strawberries. Today, in addition to selling these products, Sandra is a guardian of heirloom seeds.

According to her, the family's net income is currently about 20% higher than during the tobacco era: "Before, we couldn't even save money for emergencies. Now we can," she compares.

The change was driven by Ms. Lopes along with her mother and husband – her father was more hesitant, suspicious that the transition would not yield good results. He still plants some tobacco – in the last harvest, there were 25,000 plants – but now he also helps with the food crops. "We encourage him so he doesn't feel afraid, to see that money is always coming in," she says.

Last year, Ms. Lopes initiated the formation of the Passo Delas collective, a group of women from the community aiming to find alternatives to tobacco cultivation. Besides being the community’s name, “Passo” means "step" in Portuguese, and gives context to the collective's name: "Passo Delas" translates to "Their Step" or "The Women's Step." "The name refers to our community, but it also means that women are taking the first step towards diversifying tobacco cultivation," she explains, adding: "We hold meetings at each property to see how women can improve and what they need to learn. One of them is about to have her land certified to produce organic food crops, and others are already working on vegetable gardens without pesticides."

It is not unusual for families focused on cultivating a single crop to begin diversifying due to women's initiatives. This diversification frequently starts in backyard gardens, often underestimated for their lower economic significance in formal markets: "The backyard is where women can choose what to grow, experimenting with new crops. Additionally, it ensures food sovereignty and security for families," explains Luiza Damigo from AS-PTA.

Women have also played an important role in preserving heirloom seeds in the region, especially the tiny seeds from vegetables, legumes, and medicinal plants.

This is shown in the results of the Emergency Project for Conservation and Multiplication of Agrobiodiversity in Paraná, conducted between 2020 and 2022 by the Agroecology Seeds Network (ReSA) and executed by AS-PTA. The project involved dozens of families in the state producing seeds that were distributed to various communities. When it comes to grains, such as corn and beans, a total of 18 women and 66 men delivered 30.5 thousand kilograms of seeds of 78 varieties. But when it comes to vegetables and Non-Conventional Food Plants (PANCs), women's participation was much greater: 36 women and 9 men delivered 85 thousand packets of seeds of 65 species and 252 different varieties. "These seeds 'smallness' is inversely proportional to the importance they have in guaranteeing food and nutritional security," emphasizes Ms. Damigo.

 

* The KHs's reporter was sent to the state of Paraná in partnership with AS-PTA. An expanded version of this story, divided into three parts, was published in Portuguese on “Mídia Ninja” website.

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The information and views set out on this news are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the Parties to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC), the Parties to the Protocol to Eliminate Illicit Trade in Tobacco Products, or the Secretariat of the WHO FCTC.