The huge impact of the new coronavirus has had consequences for the lives of people around the world, from large cities to rural areas. With no expectation that the pandemic will be controlled in Brazil, COVID-19 cases and the number of people dying from the disease are growing at an alarming rate, advancing into the peripheries of large urban centres and moving inland to smaller locations.
In order to slow the spread of the virus, state governments have decreed social isolation measures, prohibiting access to squares, parks and beaches, as well as closing commerce, services and educational institutions, including street markets and events that attract crowds. Although these are essential to restrict the number of infected people, such measures impact directly on the lives of farmers who depend, for their survival, on selling their family farming products.
Most rural workers support themselves through the production and sale of fruit, greens, roots, vegetables, milk and dairy products. These products are sold at street markets in municipal centres, local commercial outlets, Food Supply Centres (Centrais de abastecimento: CEASAs) and through government programmes, such as the National School Meals Programme (Programa Nacional de Alimentação Escolar: PNAE) and the Food Acquisition Programme (Programa de Aquisição de Alimentos: PAA), whose main objectives are to purchase products from family farmers and distribute them to those most threatened by food and nutrition insecurity.
However, over President Jair Bolsonaro’s time in office, there has been an emptying of politics and successive funding cuts to programmes to incentivize family farming. According to the National Agroecology Coalition (Articulação Nacional de Agroecologia: ANA) the 2020 budget forecast for purchases from these producers was only BRL 186 million, with 66 million contingent at the time the country received the first cases of COVID-19.
With drastic cuts to policies and without a structured logistical family farming network, in the midst of social isolation, rural workers have lost agroecology food products, while informal workers in large urban centres have not been able to feed themselves properly during the greatest sanitary and humanitarian crisis in Brazil.
Partnership with the Popular Peasant Movement
In light of this, through its Match Funding Methodology, CESE has joined the Popular Peasant Movement (Movimento Camponês Popular: MCP) to support the project “Peasant food on the tables of the socially vulnerable urban population” helping families from the city of Goiânia, impacted by the spread of the pandemic, to access healthy food.
As well as satiating the hunger of the most vulnerable urban individuals in the capital of Goiás, the initiative aims to guarantee a minimum income for peasant families, by disposing of their products. Sandra Alves, from the MCP’s state coordination team, explains how the countryside has suffered in the current economic, social and cultural environment: “Farmers have lost their production distribution channels because of social isolation measures and a lack of public policies for peasant farming, deepening inequality. Moreover, there have been cultural losses, given the many community/religious festivals that have had to be cancelled,” she reported.
At this moment, farmers are carrying on working. Although the majority also experiences social and economic vulnerability, food, an essential necessity for life, is something that is not lacking for these families.
Although they have food, according to Jessica Britto, also a member of the movement’s state coordinating team, governments have not taken on their responsibilities in public policies that guarantee minimum dignity for those who live and produce in the countryside. For Jessica: “At federal level, the few measures that have been adopted have excluded small-scale farmers, as is the case with the emergency aid and the credit from the National Program to Strengthen Family Farming (Programa Nacional de Fortalecimento da Agricultura Familiar: PRONAF) – people have not be able to access it. And there are no actions or support for peasant farming in the states. When we make demands, they reply that there has been a financial impact because of the crisis and all the funds are prioritized for health.”
When support did not arrive, the MCP sought alternatives for survival in the midst of the pandemic. For the MCP, the means of resistance lie in grassroots mobilization and solidarity between the countryside and the city. “Our challenge today is trading our products. We are making up baskets with farming products to deliver to consumers’ homes in the city. And we are also seeking support from organizations and foundations like CESE, as a means to distribute this food to the families who need it”, Jessica declared.
In Brazil, 70% of the food that reaches Brazilian tables comes from family farming. According to the most recent Agricultural Census by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística: IBGE), this is the main economic activity in 90% of the country’s municipalities whose populations are below 20 thousand, and is responsible for sustaining 40% of the economically active population.
Solidarity initiatives, such as the MCP’s, which rely on sharing and on the huge challenge of changing production pathways in Brazil, have real power to confront and overcome the new virus. “CESE’s support is essential in confronting the sanitary and economic crises we are experiencing, since with this support we are able to dispose of some of the farmers’ products, generating income while, at the same time, ensuring that healthy, good quality, food reaches vulnerable families in the city”, declared Sandra Alves.
Match Funding Methodology
During the pandemic period, CESE is making funds available through the Change the Game Programme to support the emergency aid activities of social movements and partner organizations to combat the impacts of SARS-CoV-2, the COVID-19 causative agent. Through this support, CESE encourages groups to raise half of the funds required to run their project, and then doubles the amount.
In order to raise half the project value, the MCP raffled a heifer and raised BRL 5,050.00. To raise these funds, the organization relied on networking between rural workers and individual solidarity via donations during the pandemic. For the movement’s state coordination team, activities such as these are very challenging, but if they had started after the outbreak of the epidemic, they would not have been so successful, “I believe it would have been difficult to complete the activity”, declared Sandra, noting current financial difficulties.
For the project “Peasant food on the tables of the socially vulnerable urban population”, CESE matched the amount raised, providing a total of BRL 10,100.00