Fiorello's Sister
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Efficient Irrigation for High Value Products |
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Monday, 03 March 2008 |
 BACKGROUND: The arid region of Northeastern Brazil has an area of 1,000,000 square kilometers with 15 million inhabitants living in poverty. Cyclical droughts over the past four centuries have given rise to the so-called "drought business," marked by federal support for distribution of food - currently as food stamps - and the creation of civil works construction projects to build water storage systems much to the benefit of wealthy landowners. Widespread poverty and malnutrition exist among small farmers, although the region is a net food exporter based on government-supported large irrigation projects in the surrounding areas. Appropriate and sustainable irrigation and energy technologies, focused on production of crops to meet growing demand for natural and off-season products offer the potential to overcome poverty in the region.
APPROACH: The Efficient Irrigation for High Value Products Project develops financing for small sustainable agriculture and infrastructure projects in the Brazilian Northeast, with the Funcredi and other microcredit providers, and provides training to multiplier groups to access that financing on behalf of their members in the States of Alagoas and Bahia.
ACTIVITIES: In 2004, Instituto Eco-Engenho (IEE) implemented three pilot projects with other MOSAICO partners. The first was the Brazil Renewable Energy Finance Capacity Building Program in collaboration with e³V.
The remaining two projects were carried out with the Fiorello H. LaGuardia Foundation (LGF). The first of the two projects with LGF was to demonstrate the viability of the production of high value products utilizing a locally developed hydroponics system appropriate for the small farmers in the Alagoas semi-arid region. While the cultivation, harvesting, and sale of pepper in the local market enabled the farmers to amortize the hydroponics equipment, their income increased substantially only when they began to add value by bottling the peppers in vinegar for sale to local restaurants and supermarkets.
The second LGF project was carried out with APAEB. The project supported three drip irrigation subprojects to produce feed for milk goats, feed for meat goats and garden vegetables respectively. The drip irrigation systems used solar panel, solar pumping or gravity.
IMPACTS: The eventual product, jarred peppers in vinegar, commands a price high enough not only to amortize the investment in the hydroponics system, but also to increase family income by 400-500%. At the same time, the handicraft processing created local employment. The hydroponics system, in addition to using a local hardwood for the structure, utilizes recycled liter Coca-Cola bottles as planters and rice husk charcoal as a substrate, low cost solutions that also reduce two serious pollution sources.
The financial model developed in the drip irrigation subprojects convinced a private Brazil company Amanco, to market a line of drip-irrigation kits.
NEXT STEPS: The financial analysis of the pilot projects as well as of additional projects in execution that refine the most promising approaches will be undertaken to produce empirical data on the costs of replicating the projects at a larger scale.
The financial models will provide the basis for future negotiations with other sources of microcredit, such as Banco do Nordeste do Brasil, Caixa Economica. Training materials will be made available to other producers groups, cooperatives, and rural laborers unions.
These efforts will lead to the establishment of a local legal entity AMercSol, which will undertake the tasks of identifying additional farmers/entrepreneurs, providing them training, access to financing, access to markets for their products and ongoing technical support.
To download a summary of this project, please click here. |
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Last Updated ( Sunday, 30 March 2008 )
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