Small honey producers in the region of Bico do Papagaio, in the north of Tocantins, will receive more than R$ 1.2 million to be invested in a unit for processing the product.
The initiative is the result of a partnership between Fundação Banco do Brasil and Suzano to boost the state’s honey production chain. Signed this week, the partnership will benefit around 800 people from five associations and a cooperative in the Angico region.
The action also provides for the improvement of honey production techniques and the strengthening of associations to expand the production chain and improve infrastructure to add value to the product and enable its commercialization with access to the market.
The project includes producers in the municipalities of Angico, Santa Terezinha do Tocantins, Riachinho, Nazaré and Darcinópolis, where there are families in a situation of high social vulnerability.
The goal is, by 2030, to help lift 200,000 people out of the poverty line in their areas of operation. With the initiative, it is estimated that the average income of each family will increase from 60% to 70%, from R$ 870 to R$ 1,500 per month, at the end of the second year of the project.
Most local communities are made up of family farmers and extractivists who still live in a context of low economic diversity, among other situations that impose risks of vulnerability on them.
For the president of Fundação Banco do Brasil, Elis Zilli, the partnership is an important opportunity for the economic development of communities. “We are sure that the results that will be achieved will contribute to the quality of life of these small producers, promoting social inclusion and the generation of work and income for family farmers in the Angico region, in Tocantins”.
“In this sense, promoting income generation and sustainable development in the communities neighboring our operations is part of our business conduct. This beekeeping project will strengthen associations with the consequence of an improvement in the living conditions of families, in addition to environmental conservation,” said Cristina Gil, Suzano’s executive director of Sustainability and Communication.
Since 2006, Fundação Banco do Brasil has supported more than 150 projects aimed at the beekeeping production chain in 23 states, reaching more than 48 thousand people and with an investment of more than R$ 19 million.
Suzano maintains other actions to support the honey chain, based on the Beehives Program, in other states: São Paulo, Espírito Santo, Bahia, Mato Grosso do Sul and Maranhão, responsible for the production of more than 2 thousand tons of honey and a income exceeding R$ 30 million per year.
In addition to the initiative in Tocantins, another partnership project is under construction to strengthen the cassava production chain in the extreme south of Bahia and the north of Espírito Santo.
Scheduled for early 2023, the initiative foresees, among other activities, the productive strengthening of cassava, the construction of processing infrastructure and support for market access for vulnerable family farming communities in the region.
