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Image: Eduardo Aigner

similar technology for 56,000 litre reservoirs, and provides

water to irrigate food crops for families who have already

benefited from the previous programme.

Finally, agroecological transition entails gradually

increasing forms of production and consumption, and

research and rural extension services, which promise a

symbiotic relationship between sustainable natural resource

management, healthier food production and income gener-

ation. This should be done through the enhancement and

preservation of traditional knowledge and agricultural

practices, in conjunction with efforts to gradually reduce

the use of pesticides while promoting alternative forms to

increase food production and income, thus creating the

conditions to make agroecological and organic production

economically viable for family farmers.

The overarching vision for Brazil’s rural development in

the medium to long term lies in the gradual drive to tran-

sition to an agroecological production model, in synergy

with an increasingly robust economic organization of

family farmers’ associations and cooperatives. This decision

has been ratified at the highest level, with President Dilma

Rousseff’s launch of the National Plan for Agroecology

and Organic Production (PLANAPO 2013-2015) in 2013.

PLANAPO includes the development of technologies to

increase production and productivity of selected seeds.

For instance, the National Program of Seeds and Seedlings

provides R$150 million for the acquisition and distribu-

tion of plant and animal genetic resources through the PAA

programme, and R$17.1 million in the implementation of

infrastructure for seed banks and community houses.

Family farmers can fulfil their potential to contribute to

sustainable development if states around the world create

and implement public policies that correspond to their

various needs. Those needs are best addressed through

permanent dialogue based on mutual trust and accountability

between government officers and family farmers’ organiza-

tions, through institutionalized mechanisms at all levels.

Brazil’s recently approved National Plan for Sustainable and

Solidary Rural Development (PNDRSS) resulted from just

that: 436 conferences at territorial, municipal and sectoral

levels which congregated 42,000 people, culminating in a

national conference with 1,500 delegates representing the

diversity of Brazil’s family farmers. The plan compiled 100

priority proposals and fused them with existing government

plans to form a strategy to guide the Brazilian Government’s

actions for rural development and family farming in the

short, medium and long term.

The entire process of the International Year of Family

Farming – from the campaign initiated in 2008 to the

creation of national committees and its celebration in 2014

– has marked significant milestones on the road to deep-

ening the dialogue between rural social movements and

governments and driving public policies that strengthen

family farmers worldwide. The continuation of this process

after 2014 should enable more sustainable development

models to emerge.

MDA’s Programme for the Productive Organization of Rural Women aims to promote the economic empowerment of women and strengthen their

organizations by tailoring the ministry’s entire set of policies towards their specific needs

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