In Paraguay, farmers are adapt their practices to be in harmony with the environment.
Blanca Saiki has been growing grains for almost 45 years. She owns 500 hectares in the district of Pirapó, 420 kilometres from Paraguay’s capital, Asunción. She cultivates soybean, wheat, corn, sunflower, sorghum, canola and other agricultural products.
Blanca is one of the nearly 70,000 grain producers in Paraguay who are responsible for more than 60 percent of the country's exports and around 17 percent of GDP.
Edoard Schaffrath is originally from Brazil but has been living in Paraguay since 1988. He is the district superintendent in Naranjal, about 350 kilometres from Asunción, where he also owns and works around a thousand hectares.
Both producers have been working in agriculture for decades. But not everyone in their communities approve of their work. Grain farmers are called "sojeros", a pejorative shorthand for soybean producers, and blamed for the deforestation and contamination of soil and water resources in the country. Balnca and Edoard accept that there are practices that should be improved, and they care about getting on the path to sustainability.
NO SHRINKING VIOLENT
Blanca is a strong woman with an big personality. When she was very young, she left her studies to work and help with her family’s household expenses. Seeking better opportunities, she migrated to Pirapó, a district founded in 1960 by Japanese immigrants dedicated to agriculture. There she met the man who later became her husband.
"A Paraguayan with a Japanese was not normal,” Blanca says. “My marriage was difficult. I was not accepted by my husband's family. The economic situation was not good, but I coped with the circumstances, and together with my husband we embraced the small farm living."
This new life also included looking after her three children. As little kids, they used to ride with her on the tractor. Their day-to-day life passed between drying the soybeans in the sun, packing them, moving them and stacking them in the storeroom.
At the end of their days toiling on the earth, they were unrecognizable under thick layers of dust. In the evenings, they would make the necessary calculations to determine how much they could invest or borrow for production. When her husband died, Blanca picked up the reins of the entire operation.
DEMYSTIFYING SOY
Paraguay is the world’s sixth largest exporter of meat, the sixth largest producer of soybeans and soybean oil, and the fourth exporter of that grain. Currently 3.4 million hectares are planted with soybeans. According to the Union of Production Guilds (UGP), 20 percent of that area is worked by more than 38,000 small producers, who cultivate plots of up to 20 hectares each.
Edoard comes from a long tradition of migration. In 1924 his grandfather left Germany to settle in Brazil, where he continued the activity in which he was already engaged in Europe, agriculture. In 1978, a very young Edoard travelled with his father to the Naranjal area in Paraguay, where he also became a farmer.
"When we were kids, we worked with ploughs and oxen and cleared the field manually with an axe. For many years governments encouraged policies of low-cost and accessible loans to clear land for production," Edoard remembers. The situation changed in 2005, when the "Zero Deforestation" law entered into force.
According to Edoard, the difficulties many grain producers face today are mainly due to "bad decisions made by themselves". The use of unsustainable agricultural techniques, including aggressive practices towards the soil and the inefficient use of water, have caused soil erosion.
In contrast, Edoard's farm is an example to be followed, employing environmentally friendly planting techniques. "We need a change of culture among the producers. We call the new generation 'cowboys of the farm', because they have everything easy and do not want to compromise," he explains. But little by little, they are introducing sustainable practices that protect the land and crops.
THE ALTERNATIVE
The Green Production Landscapes project was developed to respond to the tension between the farmers’ desire to increase grain production and the need to protect the environment. It is implemented by the Environment Ministry with support from UNDP and funding from the Global Environment Facility (GEF).
With the aim of promoting biodiversity and sustainable soil management, the National Platform of Sustainable Commodities was created, made up of producers from the area, including Blanca and Edoard. Both participated in the drafting of the 2018 action plan, which includes the diffusion of good agricultural practices.
A land registry of the Naranjal farms will be established to monitor compliance with environmental regulations. A website will provide information on each farm, from the state of payment of taxes to the verification of forest area coverage and protection of waterways, among other data.
"The bread we put on the table every day comes from wheat. The milk comes from cows that eat corn and soybean meal. People seem to have forgotten that in the morning, they want to have breakfast, at noon they look for lunch, and at night they have dinner. All that comes from here, where the food is produced. "
Over time, and with sustained commitment, Edoard hopes the changes he and other farmers are making will win back the trust of the community.
See photo story on UNDP.