Avanços e desafios no processo de certificação da produção orgânica no Estado de Mato Grosso do Sul

Abstract

General consumers seek for an increasingly healthy eating, with respect to human health and the environment, and this has awakened in family farming a growing interest in meeting this demand. This segment found in Agroecology the basic precepts to undertake production initiatives, generating products qualified as agroecological or organic. However, from the moment that consumers chose to opt for organic products, the need to verify and prove the authenticity of this production rose. From the old world, in Europe, in 1920, manifestations for the organic production legalization started and it was spread to other continents until reaching Brazil, which has to draw up laws to govern organic production, requiring the certification of this process, in order to give the consumer products non harmful to health and that respect the environment. From the study of the history of organic production certification in the world and the reflection in Brazil, its development and the formalization of federal law to ensure that the country fits to some standard procedures of the international consumer market, the laws suited and integrated the country needs, emerging different kinds of certification in Brazil. In this context, research works were carried out, leading to three chapters of this dissertation. In the first chapter “Organic production and its certification: some historical aspects and perspectives”, a literature review was conducted to know the process of organic certification in the world and in Brazil, as well as reflecting the state of Mato Grosso do Sul with the rise and structuring of the Organic Producers Association of Mato Grosso do Sul – APOMS, culminating in its accession to the participatory certification process of its members’ organic production, presenting the historical trajectory that it built up to become a Participatory Body of Organic Conformity Assessment - OPAC in MS state.From this section, the research worked with the participation of APOMS technicians involved in the entity’s management and the certification process, performing interviews guided by a semi-structured script consisting of open questions aimed at understanding the dynamics of participatory certification developed in MS state through OPAC under the association's responsibility, originating the second chapter: “APOMS, its trajectory and course towards the development of certified organic agriculture in Mato Grosso do Sul”. This research aimed to identify the difficulties and advances inherent to the construction of the certification process. Participants discoursed about the organization’s history since the year 2000, emphasizing the performance in several activities in favor to the members. They highlighted the entity's participation in the formation of the “organic production” law to the present time. They also highlighted aspects that represent bottlenecks and hinder the certification process, such as insufficient number of technicians to meet the growing demand of members, resulting in accumulation of administrative activities, difficulty of monitoring farmers in productive centers dispersed in the state, small amounts of financial resources coming from projects, which have time to meet the pre-established goals. Technicians associated to APOMS praised that positive points stand out the difficulties since the farmers involved assimilated and responded promptly to assume roles as productive group coordinators, involvement in the phases proposed – coordination teams, monitoring and following-up of the cores, participation in marketing and logistics group, among other activities that need to strengthen unity and cooperation between technicians and farmers. However, the work’s strongest question was “if the farmers involved were aware of the importance of the project they are part of and their difficulties and expectations in the process”. This has based the manuscript comprising the third chapter, aiming to relate the difficulties inherent to the production process, certification and marketing: “Perception of family farmers on the construction of participatory certification of organic production”. The study was conducted involving a limited number of settled family farmers belonging to Ponta Porã Center (Itamarati settlement) and Dourados Center, represented by traditional family farmers, coming from Dourados, Fátima do Sul and Glória de Dourados cities. The research performed interviews based on a semi-structured script consisting of open questions, collecting information from the experience of farmers, their difficulties in production and marketing, as well as the commitment to quality and construction of the certification process of organic production in the MS state. The farmers interviewed are all associated with APOMS and are already in the final stage of the certification process, guaranteed by the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply - MAPA, which are about to receive the organic production guarantee seal issued by MAPA. These farmers highlighted some weaknesses, such as the lack of more constant technical assistance, although many of the farmers have access to technology through social media, which help in the dialogue among them and in sharing experiences and abandon doubts, but not everyone can have access to these technologies. The most latent point highlighted by Ponta Porã Center farmers refers to the production marketing, once one of the most important ways to do it is through the Food Acquisition Program – PAA, but budget cuts from the federal government affected the program implementation. They complement that local consumer market is small and cannot enable adequate logistics to access other consumer markets to distribute their productions. Another factor that negatively interferes in the production units of Ponta Porã Center is the bureaucracy required for certification inherent to property and production management, since there is a need to fulfill several forms, and many farmers have low education, leading them demotivation. The farmers also emphasize the low diffusion of organic production to consumers, which contributes to impede the production commercialization. However, they attest that the awareness of the organic farmers inserted on the Agroecology Network APOMS project is well developed in relation to the production process as well as to the commitment to follow the current aw.