The federal government relaunches, on the 22nd, the Food Acquisition Program (PAA). According to the Minister of Agrarian Development, Paulo Teixeira, the government team intends to take advantage of a visit by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to Recife to announce the resumption of the program.
Created at the beginning of the first Lula administration, in 2003, the PAA was instituted to encourage sustainable family farming by encouraging consumption of the sector’s production, mainly through purchases made by public bodies. The practice also tends to contribute to the formation of public stocks, helping to avoid skyrocketing prices of the main foodstuffs, in addition to encouraging healthy eating habits.
“On the 22nd now, in Recife, the federal government will relaunch the PAA, with R$ 500 million to buy from family farming and take [os produtos] for the people’s table”, announced the minister at the 20th Festival of the Agroecological Rice Harvest, an event that the Landless Rural Workers Movement (MST) held in Viamão (RS) and that brought together family farmers, businessmen, members of other entities that support the movement, representatives of the federal government and parliamentarians.
“We are going to buy the food you produce at market prices and put it on the people’s table. University restaurants, the Army [Forças Armadas]everyone will have to buy from family farming”, added Teixeira, responding to one of the main demands of the segment after what entities such as the National Confederation of Rural Workers Agriculturists and Family Farmers (Contag) classify as the “dismantling of the PAA and of several policies public services” after four years “of invisibility for the sector”.
“It is unacceptable that here in the state [do Rio Grande do Sul], our children eat crackers with artificial juice, that our children do not have a healthy diet at lunchtime”, said state representative Bruna Rodrigues (PCdoB) when remembering that, as a child, school lunches were one of her main motivations to go to college. “I’m one of those who went to school to eat lunch. So I know how important it is,” she said.
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The Minister of Agrarian Development recalled that, last week, the federal government announced the readjustment of values passed on to states and municipalities through the National School Feeding Program (Pnae). Depending on the teaching stage, the readjustment can reach 39%. On the other hand, the program’s norms establish that at least 30% of the items purchased with federal resources come from family farming.
Teixeira also mentioned the federal plans for the National Supply Company (Conab) as one of the actions to boost the sector. Present at the event, the nominee for president of the company, former state deputy for PT Edegar Pretto, guaranteed that he was “formulating the company’s next announcements to meet [às demandas] of companions”.
“We have an obligation to think, reflect and reaffirm our commitment to the 33 million men and women who go to bed and wake up hungry every single day. And for those who still have doubts, when we take over Conab, no service will be reduced. We will do more and better”, promised Pretto, noting that Conab’s link to the Ministry of Agrarian Development and Family Agriculture was a political indicator of the company’s new orientation.
“The number one priority is to guarantee settlers, family farmers, Indians, quilombolas, riverside dwellers, fishermen, in short, all those who choose to produce food [para a população brasileira]that the government, Conab, will be its biggest customers, [adquirindo a] production that you harvest”, assured Pretto.
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Held annually, this year’s Agroecological Rice Harvest Festival took place in the rural settlement Filhos de Sepé, in Viamão, in the metropolitan region of Porto Alegre. According to the MST, all production in the settlement is free of pesticides and transgenic products.
Also according to the movement, the site is one of 22 rural settlements spread across nine cities in the state. Together, they bring together 352 families linked to seven cooperatives, who estimate they will harvest more than 16,000 tons of organic rice in the current harvest.
According to the Instituto Riograndense do Arroz (Irga), an autarchy subordinated to the State Secretariat of Agriculture, Livestock and Rural Development, for more than ten years the MST in Rio Grande de Sul has led the list of the largest Brazilian producers of organic rice in Latin America .
