The United Nations’ International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) will expand support for two new projects that will raise investments in Brazil to over US$550 million by 2018 and which will include more than 300,000 families.
Two new projects under design are to expand IFAD-funded operations from the semi-arid sertão where IFAD has operated for the last 35 years to Maranhão’s Amazonian transition area and Pernambuco’s coastal rainforest known as mata atlantica and pre-sertão area known as agreste.
With over US$300 million invested in Brazil over the past three decades – about 67% of the total US$450 million in Latin America and the Caribbean – IFAD has promoted family agriculture and the dissemination of technology that has helped feed the largest Latin American nation.
“The role of family farmers in feeding the world is undeniable. In Brazil, they produce up to 70 per cent of the country’s staple food. The world has a lot to learn from how Brazil has supported family farmers, giving them the tools they need to succeed,” said Kanayo F. Nwanze, IFAD’s president.
Nwanze will arrive in Brazil on July 19 on an official visit which will include the agriculture cooperatives in the state of Bahia – COOPERCUC in Uauá and COOPROAF in Manoel Vitorino – which have been supported by IFAD.
Nwanze will also meet with Bahia governor Rui Costa.
Over the next three years IFAD should implement a new programme known as Adapting Knowledge to Sustainable Agriculture and Access to the markets which will allow the extension and adaptation of innovations developer by the government controlled Brazilian Agriculture Research Corporation (Embrapa) to projects financed by IFAD in Latin America.
The projects follow IFAD’s new strategy for Brazil which will focus the entity’s actions to supply family farmers to increase their productivity and to ease access to essential services such as training, investment planning, financing and technical support, giving a special bias to climate-smart technologies. The aim will be strengthen local rural organizations and connecting them to markets.
To read more and IFAD’s actions and Mr. Nwanze’s visit click here.
