Since it began operating in the state of Pará, O Grupo BBF (Brasil BioFuels), the largest palm oil producer in Latin America, has doubled the number of active employees in the state. The company stands out as one of the major generators of opportunities in the northern region of the country, with more than 6,000 direct jobs and 18,000 indirect jobs. In Pará, Grupo BBF is present in the municipalities of Acará, Moju, Concórdia and Tome-Açu.
"Since 2020, we've had a big jump in the number of employees in Pará, increasing our workforce by 2 times, from 2,500 to 5,037 in 2023. Now, our expectation is to double the current number over the next few years," says the CEO of Grupo BBF, Milton Steagall.
Currently, around 29.6 million people live in the Amazon region, according to the Brazilian Institute of Research and Statistics (IBGE). For Grupo BBF it is essential to create job and income opportunities for this population, as long as the forest remains standing.
"We will only have a fair country and talk about stopping deforestation when we can offer jobs to this population. We have 31 million hectares that can be recovered with the oil palm in the Amazon region and the palm cannot be mechanized, which keeps people in the countryside. This work is important because it is inclusive," says Steagall.
The great differential of the Brazilian oil palm production is in the strictness of the national legislation. Its cultivation follows the Oil Palm Agroecological Zoning, defined by the Federal Government in Decree 7172 of May 2010. The areas suitable for sustainable oil palm cultivation in the Amazon region were defined in a robust work developed by the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa).
This legislation, considered one of the strictest in the world, allows oil palm to be cultivated only in degraded areas of the Amazon region until December 2007. In total, around 30 million hectares in Brazil are suitable for oil palm cultivation, but only 200,000 hectares are currently under cultivation. "Based on the Oil Palm Agroecological Zoning, it was possible to start our operations and investments in the cultivation of a plant that enables forest recovery and socioeconomic development in regions lacking jobs and infrastructure," explains the CEO.
In addition to the sustainable cultivation of oil palm on more than 75,000 hectares planted on its own land, Grupo BBF has a Family Farming Program, which encourages more than 400 family farmers in the state of Pará with the supply of seedlings, barter for the purchase of fertilizers at affordable prices, technical assistance from experts in the cultivation of oil palm, as well as assistance with bank loans, encouragement for continuous improvement and guaranteed purchase of the fruit at competitive prices. In 2022, families in the regions of Tomé-Açu, Acará, Concórdia and Moju sold more than 37,000 tons of oil palm to the company, guaranteeing revenue of more than R$30 million last year.
For Maria Antônia da Silva, who is part of the Family Farming program at Grupo BBF, this is an achievement never seen before in her more than 30 years as a family farmer. "It was thanks to the BBF that we achieved this historic record in oil palm cultivation. Every farmer produces with love and determination, but without support we can't guarantee high-quality production. So this is an achievement for all of us," says Maria Antônia.
In 2022 alone, Grupo BBF carried out more than 40 actions aimed at the communities of the Acará Valley municipalities, such as building bridges, maintaining side roads, expanding 4G coverage, among other improvements.
Among the highlights of the improvements in infrastructure and services are the construction of 9 bridges, the maintenance of more than 650 kilometers of local roads, the construction of artesian wells, water tank structures for the communities, professional training courses, lectures on environmental preservation in public schools, phytosanitary technical assistance to the region's farmers, among others.
" Grupo BBF reinforces its commitment to the people and communities around its operations by investing in improvements and ongoing assistance to family farmers," says Steagall.
