Grupo BBF reinforces support for Adepará, Faepa and Abrapalma in the fight against illegal palm oil trade in Pará

The company encourages socio-economic development in the state through sustainable oil palm cultivation

Pará, May 14, 2024 - Grupo BBF (Brasil BioFuels), the largest palm oil producer in Latin America, took part on Tuesday in the headquarters of the Pará Agricultural Defense Agency (Adepará), in Belém, in the ceremony to present the Plant Transit Guide (GTV) for oil palm, which seeks to combat the illegal trade in oil palm fruit in the state of Pará.

At the meeting, Adepará, Faepa and Abrapalma led the agenda and presented the actions of Ordinance No. 6143/2023, of December 28, 2023, which instituted the Traceability Policy for the Oil Palm Production Chain. The coalition for traceability and combating the illegal palm oil trade clarified doubts and received contributions to improve the process of implementing the Palm Oil Plant Transit Guide (GTV), an important instrument for the tracking and inspection mechanism for transporting the fruit, attesting to proof of origin and destination of production. The decree also makes it compulsory to register cultivation areas, processing units and transporters of bunches of fresh oil palm fruit produced in the state. The regulation has a deadline of 120 days to come into force after its publication, which took place on January 2, 2024, so from May 1, 2024.

The event was attended by Adepará's director of Plant Protection and Inspection, Lucionila Pimentel; Abrapalma's vice-president and agricultural director of Grupo BBF, Fábio Pacheco; the deputy director of Productive Organization and Traditional Peoples of the State Secretariat for Family Farming, Magnaldo Menezes; Fetagri's representative, Ivaldo de Oliveira; the deputy secretary of Public Security for the state of Pará, Luciano de Oliveira, among other authorities. Representatives of the Pará Federation of Agriculture and Livestock (FAEPA), municipal secretaries of agriculture from all over the state and representatives of family farmers' associations also attended the meeting.

For Lucionila Pimentel, from Adepará, the Plant Transit Guide will curb irregularities currently being committed in the marketing of palm fruits in the state. "The product can only be received if it is accompanied by a plant transit guide," said Pimentel. "There will be an inspector who will monitor the entry, the reception of the products and the organization of the information regarding the production received on a monthly basis. So the product that enters the industries will be monitored intensively," she added.

Oil palm - The oil palm crop, popularly known as palm oil, gives rise to the most consumed vegetable oil in the world and is very important for the state's agricultural development. "We understand the need to adopt measures to regulate the oil palm production chain. Currently, Grupo BBF is one of the main palm producers in Pará, with more than 60,000 hectares under cultivation and the encouragement of more than 450 farmers who are part of the company's Family Farming Program. We congratulate the joint efforts of the coalition and the state government so that Pará can continue to be a benchmark in oil palm production in Brazil," says Fábio Pacheco, agricultural director of Grupo BBF. According to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), the state of Pará produces more than 2.9 million tons of oil palm annually and leads national production.

On behalf of Abrapalma, vice-president Fábio Pacheco points out that the Plant Transit Guide will be fundamental for Segup, the state's public security agency, to be able to act with the materiality of any possible illicit acts that could even be the subject of possible punishments. "This is what we expect for those who commit illegal activities in the palm trade. Today we have more than two hundred thousand hectares of oil palm plantations linked to Abrapalma here in Pará, including members and producers of members who are also at high risk of phytosanitary problems. Creating a tool as powerful as this one, to keep track of inspections, to know the origin and destination of the fruit, to have a good record of the producers, to know the condition of the plantations and any phytosanitary problems they may have, is fundamental to guaranteeing the future and sustainability of this sector, which is so important for the development of the bioeconomy in the state of Pará," Pacheco concludes.

About Grupo BBF

Grupo BBF (Brasil BioFuels), a Brazilian company founded in 2008, is the largest palm oil producer in Latin America, with a cultivated area of over 75,000 hectares and a production capacity of around 200,000 tons/year of oil. The company is a pioneer in creating sustainable solutions for generating renewable energy in isolated systems, with thermoelectric plants powered by biofuels produced in the region. Its agricultural activity recovers areas that were degraded until 2007 in the Amazon, following the Oil Palm Agroecological Zoning (ZAE), approved by Decree 7.172 of the Federal Government, of May 7, 2010.

0 Grupo BBF has created an integrated business model in which it operates from the beginning to the end of the value chain - from sustainable oil palm cultivation, crude oil extraction, biofuel production, biotechnology and renewable energy generation - with assets totaling around R$2.2 billion and activities generating more than 6,000 direct jobs in the northern region of Brazil. BBF's operations are located in the states of Acre, Amazonas, Rondônia, Roraima and Pará, comprising 38 thermoelectric plants (25 in operation and 13 under implementation), 3 oil palm crushing units, a soybean extruder and a biodiesel industry.

The company is expanding its supply of biofuels and has signed partnerships to produce Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) and Green Diesel (RD), also called green diesel. The new sustainable fuels will be produced from 2026 at the country's first Biorefinery, currently under construction in the Manaus Free Trade Zone.