Translator: Diana Sanchez Reviewer: Maricene Crus
To mitigate hunger, is to ease misery,
to eradicate poverty, is to change the world.
We put this title, with the idea of trying to show,
that the actions that are being developed today in global public policies
are more focused on this history of welfare.
So we have a lot of money involved,
a lot of people working to try to mitigate hunger.
As if hunger had no cause,
which is poverty,
in my opinion, at least.
More than 700 million people living in poverty
and chronic hunger live in the world,
according to data from the United Nations:
1.5 billion of these people,
with deprivations of basic health and education standards.
More than 2.7 million are trying to survive
with less than $ 2 per day.
The first urgency of poverty is really hunger.
And this slide does not need captioning.
Just look at the expression of the eyes and the expression of the hands of these people,
before a piece of bread, a small plate of food.
According to Doctors Without Borders, 7,000 children die each day,
due to hunger.
Seven thousand children die every day!
Dehydration.
Malnutrition.
Poverty is really oppressive.
Billions of dollars, also according to the UN,
are invested annually in humanitarian aid worldwide.
A huge number, a huge amount of resources,
playing money in Africa,
in regions of Central America, South America,
with regard to the fight against hunger.
In South America, about 90 million people are benefited,
for these assistance programs.
An annual investment equivalent to 4% of the region’s GDP.
According to Portal Brasil,
the Brazilian government has
another 2.5 billion to Bolsa Família,
only in October of this year.
Almost 14 million families are enrolled in Bolsa Familia.
The objective would be to offer an equal or higher per capita income,
to R $ 85 monthly.
But that part there under that slide,
this value is the cut-off value that defines what the extreme poverty line is.
So it’s clear to us, very clear,
that there are numbers being manipulated in this story.
That is, from that line of cut who earns R $ 85 per capita per month,
does not have extreme poverty.
And then the government is pulling out of extreme poverty, 14 million families,
which is not real.
Nobody lives with $ 85 reais per month.
So this analysis of this data, a very simple analysis,
shows that on the previous slide we
which had a huge number of people,
trying to survive on $ 2 a day,
which would give almost three times this value
which is the cut value of Bolsa Familia,
which establishes that, from there, you no longer have extreme poverty.
So this is unreal!
For me, the higher the number of families in Bolsa Familia,
the more the country is disgraced, the more the country is miserable,
because we are paying, with this per capita income,
people who have no possibility of survival.
The World Bank finally recognizes that the $ 2.6 billion
expenditures on extractive projects
have not helped local people to escape poverty.
These investments made in extractive activities, in areas of forest,
or with fishermen, teaching the fisherman to fish the fish he will eat,
or picking up coquinho to sell on the beach,
have not given results from the economic point of view
to move this chronic poverty to a type of economy or income
that is capable of making people live by themselves.
What is our challenge?
Faced with this and before this reality that we begin to see
public policies being repeated several years ago, there are several governments,
there are several ideologies and in a global way,
we have to think of something else,
we have to start thinking about structuring projects.
And as an NGO, the EcoEngenho Institute, of which I am a member,
is analyzing this process
and doing some projects that we will show here.
We imagine this challenge:
produce with the poor to sell to the rich.
Identify products with high added value, special market niches,
for marketing.
Introduce technological innovations, using renewable energy,
environmentally sound practices.
To disseminate this new ethic of the productive microsystems,
and relationship between classes, with an emphasis on social reflection.
Within this context, we discovered a few years ago, and we already applied,
including this slide, but I go back with it,
a slide from Sítio Baixas,
a lost community in the middle of the semi-arid region of Alagoas,
in São José da Tapera,
where people live from a kind of handicraft, from ouricuri straw.
Dona Josefa, with her two daughters, carrying straw all the time,
while sisters, other relatives, and other women are carrying water.
This is their reality in the backlands, any time you get there.
And then we had the nerve to install a hydroponic system.
And we were almost execrated by it,
because ideological groups would not allow,
because this would be a change of local culture.
Now there is no water,
has no energy, has nothing!
And how can I produce in such a community?
Through a photovoltaic system of electric power generation,
from the sun.
I move a small bomb that costs $ 300, $ 400,
I get this water with nutrients, I play for a higher water tank,
and distributed in these beds made with PET bottle.
This one: is dripped in the first bottle, which sends to the second, third,
fourth, fifth, which is collected and returns to the lower water box,
closing a circuit.
In here is used rice husk charcoal,
simply to hold the root of the plant.
At that moment everyone was saying, “But, what are we going to plant?”
And in chorus, it seems, the answer came: “A communal garden”.
No!
The community will eat from the garden, the community is hungry,
and this will not generate income.
We need to innovate in this process as well.
The idea of the project and the idea of our sponsors
was actually generating income
and not simply do a food safety project.
It was not the role of an NGO to do so at this time.
And then the project worked out.
We planted pepper as a high added value product.
The peppers grew in their little bottles.
There is a great production, wonderful!
And then, we took these people and we trained,
we train in “learning by doing” techniques,
because they can not read; they have very low schooling.
And we got to stabilize the product in place.
That is, from there we left not with the pepper to sell,
with very low added value,
but we left with the product benefited,
within the rules and techniques of hygiene, quality,
until the product is labeled and packaged, and reaches that quality to the market.
So there it is, beautiful product, makes you want to eat, even those who do not like pepper.
And we did even burn a little
which is for those who do not like, start liking,
even because it has some basic principles that are medicinal.
Then comes the last part of the project,
of those regrinhas that we began to establish for ourselves,
which is the special niche market.
So we came here with hotels,
restaurants, supermarkets, and “gourmeterias”
selling this product in partnership with entrepreneurs.
And then, the community that we met at that time …
and for me this photo is an iconic photo,
because it is a photo of Graciliano Ramos,
who has read “Dry Lives” knows that even the “Whale” dog, which is not Whale,
in this case it is “Piaba”, evidently that I was not equal to Graciliano
to have a whale, then we did a “Piaba”,
and this population today, these people, this woman, live in that other environment.
And only those who did not escape, as in the tale of Graciliano Ramos,
was the “Piaba”, which died as far as the Whale.
So that was the story of our first project.
But, the world as we know it
was built with herbs and spices.
And then we find out here,
the pink pepper:
of the southern coast of the state of Alagoas, we discovered the aroeira,
which is our tree, of the Atlantic Forest, whose fruit is the pink pepper,
which has a large-scale use,
in world cuisine,
including with greater use in France,
called “poivre rose”, a name even more beautiful than pepper.
This is the tree and there are the dishes:
the gourmet use of pink pepper all over the world.
We have our brochures of dishes that were made by Claude Troisgros,
by Felipe Bronze and such, who love to use this type of product.
And here the Wanderson of Picuí and many others who have also moved.
Arri Chopperia that you already use today;
chocolate factories in Bahia …
So it was really a success to get to the idea of this project.
Also in the field of essential oils …
these oils are used in great demand
of French perfumes, of creams.
Natura itself and other companies
that fiddle with cosmetics are using this on a large scale.
We then discovered in this community
of Piaçabuçu, on the south coast,
families who collected it,
of this type.
And they took the beneficiation in their homes.
See here how the beneficiation was done with the father, the children doing.
And the result of this was all forwarded
to the south of the country,
sold at a price of R $ 1.50 per kilogram.
This was the gain for a pound of aroeira in this region of the pink pepper.
We then created the Aroeira Project, we arranged sponsors.
We trained these people, we mobilized the community.
We spent a year in this discussion.
Here it is!
We did training on collection so that we had more selective collections.
These skilled people began to go to the field,
with their badges showing they were trained,
who have acquired knowledge.
Not only the fact of making money was important but gaining information,
gain knowledge and this no one steals.
Thieves can even take the money they earn,
but they will not take the knowledge they have gained,
in this type of work.
And then we set up a structure,
which is a small shed,
it’s not that big, it’s pretty simple,
but we put a solar collector to generate hot air.
This is our project too!
Here we generate hot air, only air, so there’s a network of pipes in here.
And we made a panel also photovoltaic,
generating electricity and injecting into the grid
through the inverter that allows this injection into the power grid,
generating energy savings.
There is no substitution,
but a process of energy so that I have a production
at a lower cost and competitive in the market
of this product.
Then we set up the production line.
There they are, the women treating the pepper with the right equipment,
with correct tools.
The thermo-solar furnaces, also built by people there,
by locksmiths there, with the staff that builds bathroom stall and such,
we took it and made it.
Very simple, here is the inside, simple but technically correct.
You see that it is all aluminum, stainless steel screen, that is,
there is no product contamination, easy cleaning.
And then the selection tables.
So here we made these tables, where the aroeira, the pink pepper,
is selected grain by grain.
And everyone was amazed: “But this is going to be absurd!
It’s a lot of work and such, “and it is!
But we had no idea of the production,
that we would be the largest producer of aroeira in Brazil,
or larger producer of pink pepper.
But we certainly wanted to have the best pink pepper in Brazil!
And today we have that feedback.
The chefs of Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo,
AMMA as a chocolate factory in Bahia,
has bought the aroeira of the Aroeira Association.
When I say ours is by our participation in the project, but it is theirs,
and is being produced there.
And here is Dona Neide,
making the final part, the selection.
After the aroma comes to a relative humidity measurement,
so that it can be bottled with at least 5%,
at most 5% humidity,
then the mastic turns into a tube of 30 grams,
that we’ll show you in a moment.
And with the dominance of this productive chain,
we left $ 1.50
for up to R $ 160
for the same pound of that pepper!
As a licit product,
I do not know any that has a value added on this level!
And it is possible, this is not an idea, nor a theory, this is being sold!
It is being sold at R $ 100 per kilo,
to $ 120, to $ 130, to $ 160 more than that, net!
People are putting it in their pocket today, this cash instead of $ 1.50!
The pink pepper then emerges as a Brazilian spice,
in the income from sustainable social inclusion.
Everyone profits: producers, consumers, entrepreneurs, community and government.
It is wealth generating wealth,
with ethics and efficiency.
And the profits from this process encompass all types of capital:
financial, social, technological and scientific.
All measurable!
It is past time to invite the world to this incessant transformation.
We need to establish ethical relationships,
live and live by valuing the inevitable interconnection
among all beings, systems and dynamics of the planet.
Anyway, mitigating hunger is really necessary.
But you have to live and survive!
Thank you very much.
(Applause)
To mitigate hunger, is to ease misery,
to eradicate poverty, is to change the world.
We put this title, with the idea of trying to show,
that the actions that are being developed today in global public policies
are more focused on this history of welfare.
So we have a lot of money involved,
a lot of people working to try to mitigate hunger.
As if hunger had no cause,
which is poverty,
in my opinion, at least.
More than 700 million people living in poverty
and chronic hunger live in the world,
according to data from the United Nations:
1.5 billion of these people,
with deprivations of basic health and education standards.
More than 2.7 million are trying to survive
with less than $ 2 per day.
The first urgency of poverty is really hunger.
And this slide does not need captioning.
Just look at the expression of the eyes and the expression of the hands of these people,
before a piece of bread, a small plate of food.
According to Doctors Without Borders, 7,000 children die each day,
due to hunger.
Seven thousand children die every day!
Dehydration.
Malnutrition.
Poverty is really oppressive.
Billions of dollars, also according to the UN,
are invested annually in humanitarian aid worldwide.
A huge number, a huge amount of resources,
playing money in Africa,
in regions of Central America, South America,
with regard to the fight against hunger.
In South America, about 90 million people are benefited,
for these assistance programs.
An annual investment equivalent to 4% of the region’s GDP.
According to Portal Brasil,
the Brazilian government has
another 2.5 billion to Bolsa Família,
only in October of this year.
Almost 14 million families are enrolled in Bolsa Familia.
The objective would be to offer an equal or higher per capita income,
to R $ 85 monthly.
But that part there under that slide,
this value is the cut-off value that defines what the extreme poverty line is.
So it’s clear to us, very clear,
that there are numbers being manipulated in this story.
That is, from that line of cut who earns R $ 85 per capita per month,
does not have extreme poverty.
And then the government is pulling out of extreme poverty, 14 million families,
which is not real.
Nobody lives with $ 85 reais per month.
So this analysis of this data, a very simple analysis,
shows that on the previous slide we
which had a huge number of people,
trying to survive on $ 2 a day,
which would give almost three times this value
which is the cut value of Bolsa Familia,
which establishes that, from there, you no longer have extreme poverty.
So this is unreal!
For me, the higher the number of families in Bolsa Familia,
the more the country is disgraced, the more the country is miserable,
because we are paying, with this per capita income,
people who have no possibility of survival.
The World Bank finally recognizes that the $ 2.6 billion
expenditures on extractive projects
have not helped local people to escape poverty.
These investments made in extractive activities, in areas of forest,
or with fishermen, teaching the fisherman to fish the fish he will eat,
or picking up coquinho to sell on the beach,
have not given results from the economic point of view
to move this chronic poverty to a type of economy or income
that is capable of making people live by themselves.
What is our challenge?
Faced with this and before this reality that we begin to see
public policies being repeated several years ago, there are several governments,
there are several ideologies and in a global way,
we have to think of something else,
we have to start thinking about structuring projects.
And as an NGO, the EcoEngenho Institute, of which I am a member,
is analyzing this process
and doing some projects that we will show here.
We imagine this challenge:
produce with the poor to sell to the rich.
Identify products with high added value, special market niches,
for marketing.
Introduce technological innovations, using renewable energy,
environmentally sound practices.
To disseminate this new ethic of the productive microsystems,
and relationship between classes, with an emphasis on social reflection.
Within this context, we discovered a few years ago, and we already applied,
including this slide, but I go back with it,
a slide from Sítio Baixas,
a lost community in the middle of the semi-arid region of Alagoas,
in São José da Tapera,
where people live from a kind of handicraft, from ouricuri straw.
Dona Josefa, with her two daughters, carrying straw all the time,
while sisters, other relatives, and other women are carrying water.
This is their reality in the backlands, any time you get there.
And then we had the nerve to install a hydroponic system.
And we were almost execrated by it,
because ideological groups would not allow,
because this would be a change of local culture.
Now there is no water,
has no energy, has nothing!
And how can I produce in such a community?
Through a photovoltaic system of electric power generation,
from the sun.
I move a small bomb that costs $ 300, $ 400,
I get this water with nutrients, I play for a higher water tank,
and distributed in these beds made with PET bottle.
This one: is dripped in the first bottle, which sends to the second, third,
fourth, fifth, which is collected and returns to the lower water box,
closing a circuit.
In here is used rice husk charcoal,
simply to hold the root of the plant.
At that moment everyone was saying, “But, what are we going to plant?”
And in chorus, it seems, the answer came: “A communal garden”.
No!
The community will eat from the garden, the community is hungry,
and this will not generate income.
We need to innovate in this process as well.
The idea of the project and the idea of our sponsors
was actually generating income
and not simply do a food safety project.
It was not the role of an NGO to do so at this time.
And then the project worked out.
We planted pepper as a high added value product.
The peppers grew in their little bottles.
There is a great production, wonderful!
And then, we took these people and we trained,
we train in “learning by doing” techniques,
because they can not read; they have very low schooling.
And we got to stabilize the product in place.
That is, from there we left not with the pepper to sell,
with very low added value,
but we left with the product benefited,
within the rules and techniques of hygiene, quality,
until the product is labeled and packaged, and reaches that quality to the market.
So there it is, beautiful product, makes you want to eat, even those who do not like pepper.
And we did even burn a little
which is for those who do not like, start liking,
even because it has some basic principles that are medicinal.
Then comes the last part of the project,
of those regrinhas that we began to establish for ourselves,
which is the special niche market.
So we came here with hotels,
restaurants, supermarkets, and “gourmeterias”
selling this product in partnership with entrepreneurs.
And then, the community that we met at that time …
and for me this photo is an iconic photo,
because it is a photo of Graciliano Ramos,
who has read “Dry Lives” knows that even the “Whale” dog, which is not Whale,
in this case it is “Piaba”, evidently that I was not equal to Graciliano
to have a whale, then we did a “Piaba”,
and this population today, these people, this woman, live in that other environment.
And only those who did not escape, as in the tale of Graciliano Ramos,
was the “Piaba”, which died as far as the Whale.
So that was the story of our first project.
But, the world as we know it
was built with herbs and spices.
And then we find out here,
the pink pepper:
of the southern coast of the state of Alagoas, we discovered the aroeira,
which is our tree, of the Atlantic Forest, whose fruit is the pink pepper,
which has a large-scale use,
in world cuisine,
including with greater use in France,
called “poivre rose”, a name even more beautiful than pepper.
This is the tree and there are the dishes:
the gourmet use of pink pepper all over the world.
We have our brochures of dishes that were made by Claude Troisgros,
by Felipe Bronze and such, who love to use this type of product.
And here the Wanderson of Picuí and many others who have also moved.
Arri Chopperia that you already use today;
chocolate factories in Bahia …
So it was really a success to get to the idea of this project.
Also in the field of essential oils …
these oils are used in great demand
of French perfumes, of creams.
Natura itself and other companies
that fiddle with cosmetics are using this on a large scale.
We then discovered in this community
of Piaçabuçu, on the south coast,
families who collected it,
of this type.
And they took the beneficiation in their homes.
See here how the beneficiation was done with the father, the children doing.
And the result of this was all forwarded
to the south of the country,
sold at a price of R $ 1.50 per kilogram.
This was the gain for a pound of aroeira in this region of the pink pepper.
We then created the Aroeira Project, we arranged sponsors.
We trained these people, we mobilized the community.
We spent a year in this discussion.
Here it is!
We did training on collection so that we had more selective collections.
These skilled people began to go to the field,
with their badges showing they were trained,
who have acquired knowledge.
Not only the fact of making money was important but gaining information,
gain knowledge and this no one steals.
Thieves can even take the money they earn,
but they will not take the knowledge they have gained,
in this type of work.
And then we set up a structure,
which is a small shed,
it’s not that big, it’s pretty simple,
but we put a solar collector to generate hot air.
This is our project too!
Here we generate hot air, only air, so there’s a network of pipes in here.
And we made a panel also photovoltaic,
generating electricity and injecting into the grid
through the inverter that allows this injection into the power grid,
generating energy savings.
There is no substitution,
but a process of energy so that I have a production
at a lower cost and competitive in the market
of this product.
Then we set up the production line.
There they are, the women treating the pepper with the right equipment,
with correct tools.
The thermo-solar furnaces, also built by people there,
by locksmiths there, with the staff that builds bathroom stall and such,
we took it and made it.
Very simple, here is the inside, simple but technically correct.
You see that it is all aluminum, stainless steel screen, that is,
there is no product contamination, easy cleaning.
And then the selection tables.
So here we made these tables, where the aroeira, the pink pepper,
is selected grain by grain.
And everyone was amazed: “But this is going to be absurd!
It’s a lot of work and such, “and it is!
But we had no idea of the production,
that we would be the largest producer of aroeira in Brazil,
or larger producer of pink pepper.
But we certainly wanted to have the best pink pepper in Brazil!
And today we have that feedback.
The chefs of Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo,
AMMA as a chocolate factory in Bahia,
has bought the aroeira of the Aroeira Association.
When I say ours is by our participation in the project, but it is theirs,
and is being produced there.
And here is Dona Neide,
making the final part, the selection.
After the aroma comes to a relative humidity measurement,
so that it can be bottled with at least 5%,
at most 5% humidity,
then the mastic turns into a tube of 30 grams,
that we’ll show you in a moment.
And with the dominance of this productive chain,
we left $ 1.50
for up to R $ 160
for the same pound of that pepper!
As a licit product,
I do not know any that has a value added on this level!
And it is possible, this is not an idea, nor a theory, this is being sold!
It is being sold at R $ 100 per kilo,
to $ 120, to $ 130, to $ 160 more than that, net!
People are putting it in their pocket today, this cash instead of $ 1.50!
The pink pepper then emerges as a Brazilian spice,
in the income from sustainable social inclusion.
Everyone profits: producers, consumers, entrepreneurs, community and government.
It is wealth generating wealth,
with ethics and efficiency.
And the profits from this process encompass all types of capital:
financial, social, technological and scientific.
All measurable!
It is past time to invite the world to this incessant transformation.
We need to establish ethical relationships,
live and live by valuing the inevitable interconnection
among all beings, systems and dynamics of the planet.
Anyway, mitigating hunger is really necessary.
But you have to live and survive!
Thank you very much.
(Applause)
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