GTZ
German Technical Cooperation Agency
GTZ, or German Cooperation Agency, in its Northeast Program, is a partnership involving the Ministry of Agrarian Development (MDA), Ministry of Environment (MMA), organized civil society around the Semi-Arid Coalition (ASA), the Union movement and other stakeholders, aiming at combating degradation of dry lands and implementation of the United Nations Convention Against Desertification, in which Brazil participates since 1997. In Brazil, this convention was put into practice through the National Action Program (PAN-Brasil) which was finalized in 2004.
PAN attracts the attention of society, private sector and government to coordinate efforts and programs of all agencies and ministries considering the dangers of degradation and desertification of soils in the Brazilian hinterlands.
The areas susceptible to desertification in the country cover 1,338,076 square kilometers and 30 million people in 1,482 municipalities, among which approximately half have the lowest Municipal Human Development Indexes (IDHM) in the country. It is worthy of note that desertification is understood as land degradation in the arid, semi-arid and sub-humid zones of the planet. Due to natural causes and/or human activity, it represents the utmost environmental degradation of these environments, loss of soil support capacity, biodiversity, and, consequently, productive and reproductive capacity of several communities inhabiting these regions. Thus, the consequences of this process are wide in scope, being environmental, social, economic and political.
Sustainable expansion of productive capacity is one of the four main areas of activity proposed by PAN-Brazil. In this scope, strengthening family agriculture in the semi-arid regions is considered a key factor, since it combats poverty, increasing employment, income and food security. GTZ sees as fundamental for fighting desertification the insertion of Northeast sustainable family agriculture in differentiated markets, such as: fair trade, organic agriculture, local agroecological fairs, institutional markets and Food Acquisition Program (PAA), among others.
The objective of GTZ support for the “Northeast & Cerrado Room” at the ExpoSustentat is thus to insure presence of family producers in this important sustainable business fair and this presence aims at presenting physical and living evidence of the economic, social and environmental feasibility of the Northeast.
Visit the GTZ website to know more about: http://www.gtz.de/brasil
