International Day of Family Farming: small farmers in Pará change their lives with palm oil cultivation

More than 400 family producers are partners of Grupo BBF in the state, transforming the reality of their localities

São Paulo, July 24, 2023 - Seu Manoel do Carmo is a family farmer from Tomé-Açú, in the northeast of the state of Pará. There he produces black pepper, cocoa, cupuaçu and since 2014 he has started growing oil palm. Manoel do Carmo is one of the 400 farmers who are part of the Family Farming Program of Grupo BBF (Brasil BioFuels). Since he started growing oil palm, along with other agricultural products, Manoel has seen his life improve: he financed his children's studies, bought a car and lives in a more comfortable house.

"Before palm oil we had a lot of difficulties. We had to borrow money. With oil palm I was able to improve my family's quality of life, raise my six children and improve my home. Today, everyone who grows oil palm has their own car... So life has improved," says the family farmer, who grows oil palm on 10 hectares, which corresponds to half of his property's cultivated area.

A similar story occurred with Mr. José de Matos, a farmer who also participates in the Family Farming Program at Grupo BBF. According to him, before working together with the company, "things were difficult". He and his family lived in "a lot of poverty". "It's through BBF that we now have something. It gave us a lot of help. [We have a house, a tractor, a motorcycle, all through [growing] oil palm," he says.

Partner farmers

The Grupo BBF Family Farming Program is being carried out in Pará, in the municipalities of Tomé-Açú, Concórdia, Acará and Moju. There, more than 400 farmers are partners of Grupo BBF, which provides seedlings, barter for the purchase of fertilizers at affordable prices, technical assistance from experts in oil palm cultivation, assistance with bank loans, incentives for continuous improvement and guaranteed purchase of the fruit at competitive prices.

Last year alone, the partner families of the Family Farming Program delivered more than 37,000 tons of oil palm fruit, which generated revenue of more than R$30 million for the family farmers encouraged by Grupo BBF.

"It's very gratifying for us to support these families with knowledge and technology. This translates into more income for the region and well-being for the people. Grupo BBF reinforces its commitment to the people and communities around its operations by investing in improvements and ongoing assistance to family farmers," says Milton Steagall, CEO of Grupo BBF.

Grupo BBF generates around 7,000 jobs in sustainable agribusiness

Grupo BBF stands out as one of the companies that employs the most people in the North of the country, with around 7,000 direct jobs and 21,000 indirect jobs across its operations in the states of Acre, Amazonas, Pará, Rondônia and Roraima.

Among the company's operations, BBF Agro employs the most workers, mainly in oil palm cultivation, from preparing the seeds to harvesting the fruit. In all, more than 4,000 people are directly employed in these areas in the states of Pará and Roraima, where Grupo BBF cultivates more than 75,000 hectares of oil palm.

"Oil palm cultivation cannot be mechanized due to the plant's characteristics. That's why we argue that as well as being a crop that recovers degraded areas in the Amazon, it's also a solution for generating jobs and income in the region," explains Steagall.

Oil palm cultivation follows the Agroecological Zoning of Oil Palm, defined by the Federal Government in decree 7.172 of May 2010. The areas suitable for sustainable oil palm cultivation in the Amazon region were defined in a robust study carried out by the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa). This legislation, considered one of the strictest in the world, allows oil palm to be grown only in degraded areas of the Amazon region until December 2007. In all, around 31 million hectares in Brazil are suitable for oil palm cultivation.

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 200,000 tons of oil per year. 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.

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. Grupo 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 palm oil crushing units, a soybean extruder and a biodiesel industry.

The company is expanding its supply of biofuels and has signed partnerships for the production of Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) and Hydrotreated Vegetable Oil (HVO), also called green diesel. The new sustainable fuels will be produced as of 2026 in the country's first Biorefinery, currently under construction in the Manaus Free Trade Zone.

BBF press office
imprensa@grupobbf.com.br

GBR Comunicação
Fernanda Domiciano / Vagner Magalhães