Rondônia´s Government supports families that maintain standing forest in the Rio Cautário Extractive Reserve

Maria Silva Costa makes her family a self-sufficient at the production of cassava flour at the Resex do Rio Cautário

The Government of Rondônia is on the right path towards forest conservation on the Brazilian border with Bolivia. Approximately 500 people in seven communities in the Rio Cautário Extractive Reserve have been receiving monthly aid of R$1,000 paid by the Permian Global company, in order of environmental services. The first payment started in September 2020.

Families will keep the right of that monthly aid for 30 years, because they contribute to the conservation of the standing forest and will reduce carbon emissions (CO²), attending expectations of the REDD+ Brazil Program.

The Resex of the Rio Cautário has 146.4 thousand hectares and is located at the Costa Marques and Guajará-Mirim cities, where 88 families were qualified to collaborate with the increase of water availability, soil conservation, pollination, fauna observation and appreciation of natural landscapes, biodiversity conservation, maintenance and increase of carbon stocks, and others.

This incentive is the result of an agreement signed by the State Government, through State Secretariat for Environmental Development (Sedam), with Permian Global, winner of the public tender, that will sell carbon credits from the maintenance of the preserved forest within the protected area and will invest in management plan.

Families will keep the right of that monthly aid for 30 years, because they contribute to the conservation of the standing forest

The agreement also foresees an investment in the extractive reserve of R$ 5.59 million/year, which will include strengthening the forest management plan and implementing programs, including the monitoring of biodiversity. The forest inventory has already been done by Sedam.

Some traditional residents want to be self-sufficient in production. The case of the 53-year-old flour producer Maria Silva Costa, known as Bahia, who has been working there for 22 years, stands out. At any time she is always present in the rustic wooden shed of her small lot in the Laranjal Community.

She doesn’t rest much, she stirs the batter of paxiubão cassava with her hands, and moves two artisanal ovens in an incessant rhythm, guaranting her daily production. That cassava´s root is over ten thousand years old and is South American, says Embrapa Biotechnology’s DNA.

Maria Silva’s flour goes to the markets of the cities of Costa Marques and Pimenteiras do Oeste, and get selled for R$ 5 a kilogram, and the starch flour for R$ 7.

“Every month there is incomes,” she says.

By her side there is hers children, sister-in-law and son-in-law, and to them she transfers her knowledge so that one day they will be independent.

According to the coordinator of Resex, Celso Franco Damaceno, social aggregation there is possible: “The production of each farm is reverted to the family group benefits in this community, in the same way as the preparation of the land, harvesting and the processo of prodution is improved”.

Maria Silva makes her best for everyone and also make the best effort to increase the production. She buys clothes, medicines and foodstuffs for her family, what justify hers hard wprking at the flour and starch flour prepares, in a pace very similar as a industrial one.

Resex production is sold in nearby towns, but certainly could reach other markets

The family is also dedicated to the extraction of latex, always starting in November. Wisely, she teaches: “The refinement of the flour has to last two hours”. And she adds knowledge about environmental conservation: “There isn’t a single foot deforested in our land; we never take more than meat and fish”.

Gardens with pumpkin, sugarcane, papaya, gherkin, cucumber and okra moves Bahia’s Family  of three children and a host child. “Those 30 years will pass, that’s why I have to organize the house of flour so that these young men (children and grandchildren) can guarantee themselves”, refers to the monthly aid of R$1,000.

The french chemist Lavoisier says that “Nothing is lost, everything is transformed”, what clearly demonstrated by the flour producers, because they make the weed out at the plantation of the cassava by hand and at the day of delivery, the roasting takes all day long. 

In roasting, after passing through sieving, the batter os cassava is placed in the oven to remove the moisture. She constantly moves the batter with a squeegee, at the place that makes the roasting, called forneiro or farinheiro.

 “When I stop, I call them to weed; and at syringe, I carry the rennet balls”, she reports. From the bowl, the látex colleted can be smoked or curdled.

She uses cassava by-products by giving to the pigs the husk in buckets. She puts it in 30 meters away from the oven and sometimes mixed with corn, and the pigs show up punctually for daily fattening. “Even when have only the husk, they don’t leave anything left over”, he says.

Rondônia, the Amazon and the world needs to get Bahia’s teachings and practices.

More information:

• 22,000 cassava producers, “the Brazilian root”, supply cities in Rondônia
• 521.25 thousand tons is the annual production, on average 23.8 t/ha
• Porto Velho leads the ranking, with an average productivity of 23.8 t/ha. The city harvested 155.9 thousand/t in 2020.
• Other major producers are Itapuã do Oeste (2nd), Machadinho d’Oeste (3rd), Candeias do Jamari (4th), Theobroma (5th), Monte Negro (6th), and Cacaulândia (7th).
• In addition to the manufacture of flour, cassava can be used in many other ways, such as for human consumption, animal nutrition, making it an excellent alternative.
• R$ 250 is the price of a 50 kg bag in Alvorada do Oeste, varying by region
• R$320 is the value per ton in Cerejeiras, R$410 in Costa Marques, R$400 in Machadinho d’Oeste and R$500 in Guajará-Mirim.
• Abstract – The Government of Rondônia is on the right path towards forest conservation on the Brazilian border with Bolivia.

(Data from Emater-RO)

*Translated by Lana Caroline Amorim Gomes Sarábia