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November  08

Piracicaba Community – UPANEMA -RN

General Characterization of the Community

The Piracicaba community is located 20 km from the center of the Municipality of Upanema – State of Rio Grande do Norte. The community is composed of 24 (twenty-four) families organized in the Piracicaba Rural Producers’ Association, with 39 registered members.

In 2005, the Dom Helder Câmara Project began giving technical assistance to this community, contributing to its organization in the social aspect by strengthening the association, guiding the formation of a women’s group and a young people’s group, and giving orientation in respect of production in all the systems existing in the property.

During this period, the community has been discussing its difficulties and problems and indicating solutions to them, pointing out the priority activities to be carried out by the technical team of the Dom Helder Câmara Project. One of the priorities indicated by the community is connected with income generation. The region has potential for livestock raising (including poultry), beekeeping, and vegetable and fruit growing, both dry and irrigated, as the region is favored with good water tables, good quality water, and medium-fertility soil. In the environmental aspect, the community benefits from the fact that the properties have well-preserved native woods, which preserve the diversity of forage species, favoring animal raising. 

In 2006, the community was helped with a beekeeping project financed by Petrobrás in association with CEFET/RN; this is today the main source of income for half the families.

In the year 2007, the community was favored with an FISP production project for sheep raising, with 210 breeding ewes and 6 breeding rams being acquired, benefiting 21 families. The community was also favored with a Rural Youth project, for the production of organic vegetables, benefiting 7 youths in an area of 50m X 50m. Traditionally, the community families plant beans, cotton, corn, elephant grass and sorghum; and they raise free-range chicken, guinea-fowl, sheep and cattle for the production of milk and dairy products.

With regard to livestock raising, there is considerable production in the community, with greater emphasis on sheep raising, beekeeping and cattle raising; these activities are responsible for most of the local income. 

The dairy cattle activity has a positive potential for the community; however, despite the fact that they know the business well, there are some factors that, at certain times of the year, make it difficult to carry on the activity. These factors are the following: a drop in prices in the rainy season; the lack of equipment to enable storing the milk and the production of derivatives; the lack of a place for the manufacture of derivatives; the lower availability of feed during the dry season; and the fact that sales are made to intermediaries, which causes an even greater fall in the price of the product, thus making the activity unviable. Therefore, due to these problems, the producers decided to adopt as an aim a visit to some cheese factories.

All these factors led the technical team, working with the Dom Helder Câmara Project and the ELO Project, to discuss with the inhabitants a more sustainable way of adding value to the milk and its derivatives.

Wishing to make progress in structuring the production chain for dairy products with the community, the idea of an interchange with Fazenda Tamanduá in Patos, State of Paraíba, was raised. 

The interchange at Fazenda Tamanduá: exchange of experience and learning

The main objective of this visit to Fazenda Tamanduá was to learn about the whole production chain related to dairy cattle, dealing with aspects such as nutritional, sanitary and reproduction management; processing of milk and cheese; how to proceed in legalizing small agro-industries; organic and biodynamic certification; sale and distribution of cheese, among others.  

In addition, there was also the goal of learning about the production chain for goat raising and beekeeping, among other activities that could add knowledge and experience for the community’s families, as this community develops several different activities. 

The assessment of the interchange by the community group, together with the technical team, showed that, according to those who took part, the interchange was very helpful in explaining the procedures in relation to management, processing and certification of products within the community, and other knowledge acquired that they consider worthwhile applying in the community. 

Bira (Piracicaba Com.) – I learnt a lot of new and interesting things, for example, I noticed that they do the thinning out of the plants the animals don’t eat; all the feed for the animals is produced at the farm itself. They use the area where the reservoirs dry out in order to plant and so save. The rotation done with the animals in the corrals and traceability are very interesting. I noticed that there is plenty of water close to the animals and that it is essential that water is kept at their disposal. It is important to control the rations – that is, an animal producing more milk receives more feed – and we did the opposite. Mr. Alan spoke about the importance of “drying” the cow before the next gestation – something we never did; another point is that reducing the feed “dries” the cow. I found the way the calves are handled very interesting. The medicines are all produced at the farm itself. They separate sick animals from the healthy ones. When the cow has completed seven months of milk production it must be “dried”. It was the first time I had entered a cheese factory of this size. It is certainly very hygienic. There is a difference between them and us, which is pasteurization – that is, we do not pasteurize the milk, we produce the cheese straight away. I had never seen some of the equipment. It is very important to have a laboratory to analyze the milk. The hygienic cleaning of the pans used is very important. I had never seen those presses, they press all the cheese in one go. I had never seen cheese in the maturing process, it is new to me. Vacuum packing is a very interesting and important process, because we are not allowed to enter the place due to the enormous importance of the process, but we saw it through a little window. At the farm the whey is re-used for the hogs, and here we don’t do it. Another point is milk analysis, which we do not do here as we lack the equipment. A negative point is that we did not see the ricotta production. There are a lot of rooms each with its own purpose. My expectation was well fulfilled because we had never seen some of these things, which were well explained by Alan, Flávio and Emanuel.

In my opinion, and according to our possibilities, a “homemade” dairy would be the type we would be able to start, as with the proper place and equipment, hygienic and well organized, like at Fazenda Tamanduá, we’ll be able to expand the installations and sell to other markets in the future. 

There is one point that links Fazenda Tamanduá to our community: they started the farm planting cotton, just like us when we first arrived at Piracicaba.

Branca (Piracicaba Com.) – I loved visiting Fazenda Tamanduá, it is very sophisticated and very different from our situation. I do hope that the cheese factory proposed for our community includes at least some equipment that would make the production of our cheese a bit easier and that will add value to the cheese. 

Elma (Piracicaba Com.) – The cheese factory is very beautiful and well organized. There is a lot of technology. I liked the hygienic part very much, as there is a lot of safety involved and I thought it was very interesting. I wish we had a cheese factory with a proper place, with equipment that would help in the production of the cheese, so that we could increase our output and produce cheese of better quality so as to increase our families’ income.

Gilvan Júnior (Sertão Verde) – The visit to Fazenda Tamanduá was excellent, we were made very welcome and all the information, from the history of the farm up to the certification, was very well explained by Alan, Flávio and Manoel. In my case, there were a few new points, such as the biodynamic certification and the biodigestor, among others. About animal management, I thought the explanations given by the vet Alan were very good, because he conveyed knowledge about animal management clearly to the farmers. I liked the cheese factory a lot, because it is well organized and well standardized, and Flávio presented it very well. Talking to the farmers, I was told that this visit to Fazenda Tamanduá was very good, because they saw some mistakes in the way they manage their herd and added that they learnt a lot and will tell the others what this trip to Fazenda Tamanduá was like and try to correct the mistakes they make.

José Holanda (P.A. Moaci Lucena) – I was surprised when we arrived, because I looked around and couldn’t see anything. I thought to myself “all this journey for nothing”, but when they started talking and showing the production areas on the farm, we then felt charmed by so many things. I will talk about some aspects that pleased me a lot, but if I were to talk about everything it would take me the whole day. Their welcome to us! You can see in their faces the pleasure they take in explaining what they do at the farm. The owner of the farm keeping his employees, his long-time employees, the respect he seems to have for each of them. The technicians speak in a very practical way that we could understand. The respect the farm has for the environment, everything is organic! The animals are all good quality, the relationship between the vet and the animals, knowing them by name, is very interesting. The productivity on the farm, from feeding to selling. The way they raise the animals separately (goats and cattle) and the organization of the farm, everything in its proper place, I will never forget how wonderful this farm is. The bad part is that the time we were there was too little to see so much.    

Júnior (Com. Piracicaba) – I enjoyed the visit very much, I asked a lot of questions and the technicians Alan and Flávio answered them all. It is very rare for us farmers to visit such a sophisticated farm like Fazenda Tamanduá and be made as welcome as we were. “I am very grateful for the things we were taught”.  I thought our visit to this farm was very important because we saw everything, from animal management, where I learnt a lot, to cheese production. From my point of view as a coalho cheese producer, we have to acquire a “homemade” dairy, because our milk production is low; and we should have a good structure that could be increased in the future. Today, I dream of having such a clean and organized cheese factory as that one.   

Núbia (PDHC) –Fazenda Tamanduá was something different from the cheese factory I saw in the community of Cachoeira in Parelhas/RN. At Fazenda Tamanduá it is all very advanced, with organic certification and almost all biodynamic, the agro-industries with SIF and SIE seals. Their animal management involves differentiated practices, as they work organically, making everything very limited, 10% of the feed may come from outside and as permitted by the IBD, and 90% is produced on the farm; everything is well organized. I loved everything I saw, a totally productive farm. All those who received us were very welcoming, giving us a lot of attention. They were very concerned that we should understand the explanations concerning the work on the farm. The difficulty I had was when they spoke about biodynamics, which I had never seen in practice, I had only heard of it and read about what it was in books, but I am trying to learn by studying this subject, which I found very attractive. The only negative point was the limited time, in view of so many things to see and learn about. I would very much like to go there again and be able to spend longer and learn more; who knows, I might get a traineeship with them.

Raimundo (Galego do P.A. Moaci Lucena) – Their animals were very beautiful, their welcome to us …, the explanations were very practical and an important thing was that the farm got the families that were already living there to continue living and working on the farm. This is very nice on the part of the owner.  

Ubeleide (Com. Piracicaba) – I liked the cheese factory a lot, the place where the milk is received, the pasteurizing tanks, the hygienic cleaning of the pans, the presses, the laboratory – which is very important –, the cheese maturing room and the packaging room (we couldn’t go in, but saw the process through a little window). I found the process in which the cheese spends thirty days resting in a room before it is packed and sold very interesting. The honey entrepôt was very interesting to see, as there is one in our town, but there isn’t a channel around it to prevent ants from getting in, like the one at the farm’s entrepôt. This was an excellent visit.

A few words about those who participated in the interchange