With the global climate strikes, climate change has become the focus of attention worldwide. In Brazil, its consequences have long been noticeable: increasing drought, degraded soils and misguided land and environmental policies are endangering the environment and thus also smallholder agriculture. Many young people are migrating in search of new income opportunities. With our partner organization Centro Sabiá, we offer young people like Gildo Jose and Gabriel Venâncio alternatives to this. They report on their experiences of the current situation in Brazil.
The burning Amazon and the global climate strikes have drawn attention to climate change worldwide this fall. In fact, the consequences of misguided land and environmental policies have been evident in Brazil for years. Extensive monocultures are depleting the soil and deforestation is driving drought. Survival is becoming increasingly difficult for small farmers who use traditional farming methods. This is driving many young smallholder farmers from the countryside to the cities or large plantations in search of a livelihood – where they often end up in exploitative working conditions or criminal activity.
Together with our partner organizations, we are developing counter-models with which they can build alternative prospects for the future. For example, young people such as Gildo Jose (with orange cap) and Gabriel Venâncio (far right in the picture) are learning visionary agroforestry methods for smallholder farming at our partner organization Centro Sabiá and are thus creating an environmentally friendly and economic alternative to emigration. The two young farmers are also politically active at Centro Sabiá and pass on their experiences to other young people. In this interview, they tell us how they experience the current situation in Brazil.
When was the last time you ate healthy, unsprayed vegetables?
Gildo Jose: Today, it came from my own garden
Gabriel Venâncio: We grow our own vegetables with our families. We don’t use agricultural poisons or any other chemical additives. We produce in organic Anbayu, organically with original, traditional seeds.
You learned about organic farming at Centro Sabiá. Why was that important to you?
Gabriel Venâncio: Centro Sabiá has been advising my family on organic farming for a long time. This has made us realize how important it is to consume healthy food. We want to live as healthily as possible. What we eat is what defines us.
Gildo Jose: At Centro Sabiá, I learned to protect the earth, the water and the trees. This has also given me a new perspective on life. I want to pass this on so that more people can learn to live in harmony with our planet.
You and your families are small-scale farmers. It’s a hard life and hard-earned bread. What keeps you going?
Gabriel Venâncio: I went to the city a few years ago to work and earn money. I realized that it wasn’t for me. For me, organic farming is not just a production method. It is a way of life that bears fruit and brings satisfaction.
Gildo Jose: It’s good that we can feed ourselves well and healthily with organic farming. Above all, it provides us with an income from our own land, so we don’t have to leave. It’s great to have a large vegetable garden and a forest with birds and animals right behind the house.
With the fires in the Amazon and Fridays for Future, climate change has become a topic of discussion worldwide. Is it being felt in your region?
Gildo Jose: Yes, even significantly. There is much less rain. And when it does rain, it’s catastrophic downpours. In addition, the temperatures have become more extreme and we often have storms that never used to happen. Some areas are being progressively devastated and the original water reservoirs are drying up. Nevertheless, people continue with their destructive practices. However, by cultivating according to the agroecological methods we learned at Centro Sabiá, we manage to make ends meet much better.
Gabriel Venâncio: The fact that we no longer have environmental stability also has a direct impact on our production.
How do you rate Brazil’s current environmental policy?
Gabriel Venâncio: On the one hand, we are working to protect the environment and preserve what we have. On the other hand, this government is destroying all our hopes. It is exclusively pursuing the interests of large landowners and agro-industry, which use a lot of agricultural poisons and practise monoculture and livestock farming on a large scale for export. But I am convinced that we can change this if we small farmers fight for our agriculture and do not give up.
Given this reality, does small-scale farming have a future at all?
Gildo Jose: Currently, 70 percent of the Brazilian population is fed by small-scale agriculture. Organic farming feeds 10 percent. To strengthen it, we need many more people, politicians, spirits who think about the common good.
Gabriel Venâncio: We small farmers are in a difficult situation without the support of the government and society and have little room for maneuver. But we support each other, for example through our work with Centro Sabiá. I have a vision of a Brazil in which we have our place and are respected. I believe that the importance of small-scale organic farmers is increasing. In Brazil, we small farmers are at the center of a new diet. There are various signs of this.
The population is beginning to eat more consciously and the demand for organic products produced without agricultural toxins is growing. If everyone has to do without agricultural poisons in the future, then we will play an important role, because we already know how to produce sustainably and in an environmentally friendly way.
What do they look like?
Gabriel Venâncio: The population is beginning to eat more consciously and the demand for organic products produced without agricultural toxins is growing. If everyone has to do without agricultural poisons in the future, then we will play an important role, because we already know how to produce sustainably and in an environmentally friendly way. If people in our exporting countries were also to grow their own produce for their own needs or rely on regional cultivation, then our exports and thus large-scale production for export would certainly slowly decline. These exports would still be necessary, as not everything can be produced locally. But the exploitation of Brazil as we know it today would stop.
