Family farming helps to increase milk production in the Northeast

Rural producer Rafaela da Silva Alves, 36, has a small property in the Maranduba village, in Poço Redondo, in the semi-arid region of Sergipe. “We have about 15 dairy cows, some calves, some heifers and an ox. This is our herd today”, says the pedagogue by training. “But I really am a peasant”, she reinforces. Her father owned the land. “He shared it with his four children, I have a little less land because I got the seat of the property”, she says.

In the hinterland of the Northeast, family farming and small producers have been growing, especially in dairy production. The producer in this region depends, to a large extent, on the monthly income from milk for his survival.

The challenges are many, says Rafaela. “We have great challenges, considering that we are in the hinterland, in the semi-arid region. It is the challenge of always thinking about a productive winter, to have enough food for the animals, access to the water supply, which is by water tanker, which is why we have cisterns and a well. The size of the small farmers’ land is also one of the problems we face in moving forward with this dairy cattle production”.

The producer, who is also a member and spokeswoman for Movement of Small Farmers, says that another challenge is the lack of incentives for production to advance. “There is a huge lack of programs and public policies for small farmers who have dairy cows. In the last period, we didn’t have access to anything”, she laments.

There is also a lack of technical support. “I still place a more contextualized technical follow-up on the level of challenges for this reality of small and medium-sized producers who do not have so much structure, so much land. Monitoring would be important so that there is genetic improvement in the herd and conditions for more alternative treatments for small farmers who survive on milk”.

Even with so many challenges, the most recent data from the IBGE show that the Northeast had growth in production (12.8%) and reached the mark of 5.5 billion liters. The most recent data refer to 2021 and are part of the Municipal Livestock Survey (PPM), released by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE). Investments in the sector and more favorable weather conditions in recent years make the region increase production for the fifth consecutive year, informed the agency.

Rafaela Alves hopes that the favorable climate will remain in the coming winter. “We peasants hope for a good winter, but at the same time we are in doubt because of the signs the weather is giving. Last year we had a much better winter, perhaps one of the best in the last 30 years!” Expected production depends on the weather, she notes. “The expectation that we have with production for the next period depends a lot on winter. It is a big challenge to secure food for the herd and, without rain, all of this is much more complex, ”she says.

IBGE data, analyzed by Embrapa Gado de Leite, indicated a drop in production in Brazil in the first quarter of 2022, compared to the same period in 2021, but some states in the Northeast showed growth, sergipe is among them, being the second state with the highest growth in milk production.

According to the National Supply Company (Conab), the Northeast Region is an exception in the general reduction in milk production, registering an increase of 4.1% from 2021 to 2022, with emphasis on the state of Sergipe.

“For Conab, the increase in production in the Northeast, in particular Sergipe, includes factors such as genetic improvement of the herd, development of cactus pear production to supplement feed and lower costs, but remembering that this is for production in general, not specific to family farming”, details Ernesto Galindo, substitute director of the Department of Evaluation, Monitoring, Studies and Strategic Information of the Ministry of Agrarian Development and Family Agriculture (MDA).

Factors

The president of the Cooperative of Milk Producers of Alagoas (CPLA), Aldemar Monteiro, explains how feeding the herd with forage cactus favors production in the Northeast. “Forage cactus is the staple food of dairy cattle in the Northeast, it is planted in semi-arid regions and survives long droughts. It is a highly tasty cactus for the cattle, which feed on it mixed with corn silage, a very good combination for the region’s livestock, a path for the development of the area”, stated Monteiro.

The CPLA president informed that in Alagoas there are about 39 thousand small family farmers and 2 thousand medium and large producers. “Even in a small territorial region, it is a very large concentration of small producers”. Improved weather conditions have also been a positive factor, adds Monteiro.

“I believe that the growth in the Northeast is due to the vocation of the producer, combined with climatic conditions, good for milk production, because it is a region that is hot during the day, but cool at night, a characteristic that was fundamental for the development of the productive chain throughout the Northeast. In the last three years, we came out of a very severe drought condition, so this improvement in weather conditions began to bring new business to Alagoas and, mainly, to Sergipe, which stood out a lot, favored corn silage and the production of forage palm” , complete.

Producer Rafaela, from Sergipe, says she feeds her herd with the palm. “The herd eats cactus pears, with a roll or silo. For dairy cows, I add concentrated feed: ground corn, soy, seeds and milk nucleus”, she details.

Fortification

Monteiro explains other factors that strengthen dairy production. “Alagoas managed to exempt the milk production chain from the Tax on Circulation of Goods and Services (ICMS), a very large tax incentive for industries in the state. This allowed them to sell their production. We still have new factories from Sergipe entering Alagoas, which is also an important factor”.

According to the CPLA president, another initiative will encourage family farming in the state. “We are setting up the first powdered milk dryer for family farming, to serve these 39,000 small producers in the state. The dryer will have a capacity for 400,000 liters of milk per day, all of which creates good conditions for the region and facilitates outflow”.

“There are several causes for this predominance, one of them is the historical pattern of land occupation with land concentration and many smallholdings”, says Ernesto Galindo, from the MDA. According to him, federal incentives were reinforced in previous years, “despite the weakening of policies in recent years, something that is currently being resumed”.

As for incentives, Galindo says that land reform policies have existed for decades, reinforced in the last 30 years with land credit policies. “Specific productive credit policies for the sector emerged in the late 1990s, technical assistance policies, accompanied or not by promotion, have already reached hundreds of thousands of farmers. In addition, there are also price guarantee policies, harvest guarantees, agricultural production insurance and more recently, from the 2000s onwards, public purchases. Many of them are concentrated in numbers in the Northeast, but with a historical concentration of values ​​in the South of the country”, he details.

regional characteristic

“The predominance of family farming and small producers in the sertão is due to the fact that the sertanejo has experience in living with drought and sets roots in the field so that he can survive”, observes professor João Batista Barbosa, from the Federal Institute of Sergipe Campus Glória (IFS), in the Dairy/Food area.

In the Northeast, milk production is influenced by weather conditions, the economy of each state, the type of food available for the animals, among other factors, says Barbosa. “It is worth mentioning that in the Northeastern Semi-Arid regions, milk production is affected by drought. In the spring and summer seasons, temperatures are high and the lack of rain makes milk production difficult, ”he explains.

According to data from the IBGE’s 4th quarter Milk Survey, milk production inspected in the Northeast stands out in the states of Ceará, Pernambuco, Sergipe and Bahia. “This fact can be explained by the implementation and improvement of the industries present in each region”, says the professor.

In the view of veterinarian George Pires Martins, the growth is due to the increase in milk processing. “Industries are growing and opening new companies, and food production, especially in the Sergipe region, which is emerging as a strong producer of grains, ends up making milk cheaper”.

For him, technological growth is also a prominent factor. “It is a region that has a lot of dairy culture, and now the technologies are starting to arrive, some producers already have systems that produce a larger volume of milk and this makes more profitable”, says Pires, who is also a dairy consultant with technical expertise in the field. Northeast and creator of the channel Milk and Derivativesin which he talks about the milk production chain.

The consultant agrees with producer Rafaela Alves regarding the technical support. “We don’t have a rural technical assistance policy aimed at small producers. I believe that this activity is much stronger because of the region’s culture than because of incentives or financial results as a whole. So, it comes much more from the culture of the region, from those who are living in the rural area, this small producer ends up making a difference in the general volume produced here in the Northeast”, highlights Martins.

He and other specialists in the dairy sector, such as milk producers, cooperatives and professionals will meet on May 11th and 12th in Garanhuns, Pernambuco, for the Milk Experience, an event to discuss topics related to the dairy sector and innovative practices. According to Agricultural Outlook 2022-2031, According to a report by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), dairy is expected to be the fastest growing livestock sector in the next decade, with the global milk supply forecast to increase by 23%.