Organizaciones Sociales de Agricultores Urbanos: Modelos de Gestión y
Alianzas Innovadoras para la Incidencia Pública
Case Study
ASPROVE – Association of
the PROVE Producers
João Luís Homem de Carvalho
Brasilia , DF - Brazil
2005
A word from the Author
The idea of carrying out the present study, writing about an Association that failed as soon as it
lost government support, might seem strange for those who know that I was one among the
responsible for the design and implementation of both PROVE and ASPROVE.
I was led to carry out this case study for two main reasons. The first is the aim of showing
that, when analyzing something that did not work out, we might learn several lessons. The
second is the will to show that there is only one way to help the excluded population, living in
nearly sub-human conditions: trying to implement new and bold ideas oriented to the social
inclusion, in spite of all risks of failure.
ABSTRACT
The case study presented is about the ASPROVE - Association of Producers of the
PROVE - Program of Verticalization of the Family Production of the Brazilian Federal
District. This association, in spite of having all the conditions to continue working until the
present day, ceased its activities before completing five years of work.
This case study intends, without any pretension of exhaustively covering the subject, to carry
on a critical analysis of the ASPROVE experience, taking into consideration the several
opinions expressed in the text. The investigation of the reasons for the failure of the
ASPROVE might provide subsidies for the formation of future associations and to how the
State must intervene in assisting the organization of family producers working in urban, periurban and rural agriculture.
The present study also aims at carrying out a brief and independent comparison between the
ASPROVE and the CESAM – Muribeca Center of Alternative Health, located at Jaboatão dos
Guararapes, in the State of Pernambuco, Northeast Brazil. While the first failed in carrying
out its activities, in spite of having received full support from the Federal District, the latter has
eight years of extremely successful work, although not having received any governmental
support.
Originally, we intended to hear more people. We intended to carry through at least two
seminaries with their members, and to request participants to fill a questionnaire, but they have
expressed their will of not getting involved with people who did not belong to the present
government. They feared that this would bring them more problems; for they are still referred
to as people who had carried out a program of Worker’s Party - PT. As a sign of respect to
their will, we have searched for previous statements, addressed to other people, but that
guarantee the same level of credibility to the analysis.
In order to understand what happened to the ASPROVE one must necessarily know the
PROVE - Program of Verticalization of the Family Production of the Federal District, mainly
because all the ASPROVE associates belonged also to the program, and because one of the
Association’s major problem was the bankruptcy of the PROVE it in the Federal District. The
analysis of the ASPROVE will, from time to time, be confused with the analysis of the
PROVE, even though the object of our study is the ASPROVE.
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Location
The association and the program have been implemented in the Brazilian Federal District, that
is located between parallels 15º 30’ and 16º 03’ of south latitude and meridians of 47º 25’ e 48º
12’ of WGR longitude, in the Center-West Region, covering the center of Brazil and the
Center-East of the State of Goiás, at a height between 1,050 and 1,200 meters above sea level.
This region comprises the Federal District and the states of Mato Grosso do Sul, Mato Grosso
and Goiás. The Federal District covers an area of the 5,789.16 km2, equivalent to 0.06% of the
entire surface of Brazil. Its natural limits are the Descoberto River, at west, and the Preto
River, at east. On the north and on the south, the Federal District is limited by straight lines
that define its quadrilateral area. It is limited to the East by the municipality of Cabeceira
Grande, State of Minas Gerais, and by the following municipalities of the State of Goiás: to the
North, Planaltina de Goiás, Padre Bernardo and Formosa; to the South, Luziânia, Cristalina,
Santo Antonio do Descoberto, Cidade Ocidental, Valparaíso and Novo Gama; to the East, by
Formosa; and to the West by Santo Antonio do Descoberto, Padre Bernardo and Águas
Lindas.
The political context in which the experience was developed
In January 1995, Professor Cristovam Buarque took office as Governor of the Brazilian
Federal District. His main political commitment was focused on the perspective of
implementing changes in the way of governing, in the first local mandate of the Worker’s Party
- PT, reflected in the slogan “To restart Brasilia” (BRAZIL, 2000).
The only way to face the great challenge of the civilization at present is to build a new concept
of development. A development that does not create inequity, that does not destroy nature,
that does not jeopardize the future of next generations, a development that brings
simultaneously sustainability, since it can be reproduced and extended for the future
generations, and solidarity, for it includes all men and women in the access to wealth and to
modern services.
[... ] The PDES (Economic and Social Development Plan) 1995-1998 is part of an
international consensus, embracing the concept of sustainability and aiming at building a path
towards a society of more fairness for its population. The rupture of the logic of the exclusion
that characterized our model of development adopted since colonial times, demands solidarity
as a central value. Without solidarity in the core of our concerns and decisions, it will not be
possible to stop the process of increasing social exclusion that we are facing today.
There are five main dimensions of sustainable and shared development: economic, social,
ecological, space and cultural (GDF, 1995, p. 3). Amongst the several proposed ways of
governing, the referred government made a series of commitments:
1. to govern through social participation;
2. to govern by respecting the citizen;
3. to govern as an act of responsibility;
4. to govern by building a partnership with civil society (GDF, 1995).
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It was in this political context of innovation promises that the PROVE-DF and the
ASPROVE appeared.
The PROVE
The PROVE was a pioneer and innovative program in terms of ideas and actions, since it was
oriented to the family agriculturists, considered by the State Secretary of Agriculture of the
Federal District as an “excluded” public - excluded in the sense of having been historically
devoted to agriculture, with little or no access to public policies of development and, in general
terms, part of the poorest segment of the rural sector of the Federal District.
PROVE-DF reached national and international recognition for having been exclusively
oriented to the less-favored sector of family agriculturists; while pursuing the goal of building a
“sustainable and shared development”. It represented a meaningful experience, an innovative
concept of local government program, targeted exclusively to the family agriculturists group.
It was a pioneer example of the State action for social development, in support to the less
favored family agriculturists in Brazil.
PROVE-DF was designed and launched in the Federal District, but has quickly gained social
visibility and political credibility, acting as a model for other states and countries. It has
become an alternative for the development and survival of the family agriculture, apart from
supporting the human fixation in the field, reducing the rural exodus and contributing to the
job and income generation.
In this sense, the birth of the PROVE-DF was a remarkable, since it represents the beginning
of the expansion of political links that characterized a differentiated relationship of closeness
between the State and the family agriculture, especially as of the middle of the 1990’s.
PROVE-DF has always been considered as a high-complexity program, aimed at stimulating
integrated actions, which ranged from the production to the commercialization of the
benefited agricultural products, and at providing technical and financial support. The
dissemination of ideas and suggestions has received substantial support. It was mainly
addressed to the family agriculturists classified by the SEAP as “excluded”.
The Program had its own logo, an institutional representation of the PROVE, that served as
well as a brand for the products of the associated agro-industries.
Soon, after the launch of the first agro-industry of the PROVE-DF, in 1995, several
agreements had been signed, so that its “model” was implemented in other states of Brazil, as
well as in other developing countries. The Federal District Government donated to a project
of agro-industries to Angola, in the African continent, together with a pre-manufactured agroindustry, – the “agro-industry kit”, built according to the models of the local constructions.
Other Brazilian states implemented a series of verticalization programs, similar to the PROVEDF, such as PROVE-Minas (Minas Gerais), PROVE-Pantanal (Mato Grosso do Sul),
PROVE-Blumenau (Santa Catarina), Sabor Gaúcho (Rio Grande do Sul), Fábrica do
Agricultor (Paraná) and Programa Desenvolver (SC).
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PROVE-branded products, as well as the program itself, had been also presented to the
Ministry of Agriculture of Cuba, in Havana; in the International Food Fair of Paris, France; in
the International Trade Fair of Buenos Aires, Argentina; in the Hanover Fair, in Germany; and
in the Second Meeting of Lusophone Agricultural Education, in Lisbon, Portugal.
Presented in the Hanover Fair, in Germany, the PROVE-branded products were so welcomed
that both Germany and South Africa presented importation requests. The idea, however, was
to restrict it to the internal market, since it grants competitive advantages for PROVE-type
products.
Having competed with 325 programs, the PROVE-DF received the Top-5 Prize of the Public
Administration and Citizenship Contest, promoted by the FGV - Getúlio Vargas Foundation,
Ford Foundation and the Brazilian National Social and Economic Development Bank
(BNDES).
Soon after the new government took office, for the 1999 - 2002 term, the PROVE-DF started
to witness a complete dismantling of its supporting mechanisms, and two years later, it no
longer existed as originally conceived.
The profile of the ASPROVE members
The profile of the members of the ASPROVE is described in a research (Brazil 2003) and
evidenced the following characteristics:
• Most of the producers have lived in the Federal District for more than twenty years
(51.9%), with a relevant percentage having lived there for more than thirty years (32.5%).
Out of the 578 collected questionnaires, 41.7% were established in their properties for
more than ten years.
• 41.9% of the interviewees declared that they have never had a profession other than in the
farming sector, either as a producer or an employee. 40,6% of them declared to have
already worked in other economy sectors, such as industry or services.
• Most of the families, 94.1%, were composed of a maximum of nine people, including all
family members. The prevalence was, however, of the small family, of up to four people:
47.9%.
• As to age groups, 45.3% had declared to have between 21 and 65 years of age, while 54.7%
had either less than 18 years or more than 65 years, which is the possible retiree
(pensioners) group.
• In respect to the education degree, 67.6% had not concluded basic education, of which
35.9% had not reached grade 5.
• The main forms of social participation identified were churches and local producers
associations.
• The main water source was the domestic well (46.2%) and more than half (56.6%) of the
families lacked a proper destination of the used water . The garbage was frequently burnt
(44.8%).
• The most utilized means of transportation was the bus, and the size of the houses varied
from three to eight rooms (68.3%).
• 60.4% out of the interviewed producers had not financed their harvest in 1995/1996.
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•
•
The practice of mutual aid was not common among the researched public. The percentage
of the ones who were experienced this kind of cooperative work was of only 8.7%.
The average monthly per capita family income was of R$40.
The ASPROVE members were linked to the PROVE agro-industries, and were small
producers of family agriculture, classified by the Secretariat of Agriculture of the Federal
District as “excluded”. Nevertheless, they had some production, although usually small, in the
urban, peri-urban or rural areas.
Their main concern was the survival, the search to meet basic family needs. Perhaps this is the
reason why they did not have enough time to join organized associations, social movements,
unions. Those are people with a quiet life; apart from their daily work, either in their own
family property or as short-term employees in seasonal harvests, they usually leave home only
to do the necessary shopping or, occasionally, to attend religious ceremonies. They had no
trust in governmental action, since history has shown that governmental programs had
brought them more damage than profit. These are people who do not explicit demands. In
order to convince them to join the PROVE and the ASPROVE, a government officer had to
go after each one of them and try to mobilize them. That would have been a much lighter task
if the debate about priority to the most needed had been internalized by public institutions.
The profile of the ASPROVE
The creation of the ASPROVE was stimulated by officers of the Secretariat of Agriculture of
the Federal District. The original aim was to stimulate the small agro-producers to replace,
little by little, the supporting role originally played by the government.
In order to acquire strength, competitiveness and autonomy, the members of the PROVE-DF
were at first stimulated to associate themselves, or to organize themselves in cooperatives, and
received from the Secretariat of Agriculture training about cooperativism and management of
production units, agricultural business and cooperatives.
However, they preferred to create an association. With the creation of the ASPROVE, the
Association of Producers of the PROVE - Program of Verticalization of the Family
Production, the members started taking responsibility for the purchase of supplies and the
commercialization of the products of their own agro-industries, reducing the tutoring action of
the Secretariat, which represented a major advance of the Program. When the Association was
created, the producers included in its Statutes the idea of creating regional associations that
would join the ASPROVE, having reached a considerable level of mobilization in this respect.
This was a clear evidence of the willingness to articulate with actors who were outside the
public service.
The ASPROVE - Association of the Small Producers of the Agro-Industries of the Federal
District, with the PROVE brand, was a non-profit organization, aimed at fostering the
economic development of its members, without a pre-determined duration.
The organization of the ASPROVE was composed for a General Assembly, a Board of
Directors, a Representative Council and a Fiscal Committee. The members of such bodies
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were not remunerated, and could not be appointed to more than one body, with the exception
of the participation in the General Assembly.
The election of members of the Board of Directors and of the Fiscal Committee was held by
individual voting in the General Assembly. The Representative Council was composed of two
members – a regular and an alternate – for each region of the Association in the Federal
District.
The common interests of most of the ASPROVE members were stimulating the
commercialization of their products and the purchase of supplies, without governmental
supervision. The participation during the 1995-1998 government term was good, having
diminished considerably later on, during the following term.
The first PROVE agro-industries started to work on September 1995, and the ASPROVE was
established in July 21st, 1997, with 100 members. Five years later, it has closed down its
activities.
The ASPROVE had its objectives and strategies registered in its Statutes:
1) Promote the social and economic development of its members;
2) Promote the trading of its members’ products;
3) Enhance the productivity of the agro-industrial units associated to the PROVE;
4) Develop the managerial capacity of its associated small agriculturists;
5) Search for governmental and non-governmental fund sources and donations, aimed
at improving and enlarging the agro-industrial units;
6) Organize and deliver professional and cultural training courses for its members,
either alone or in partnership with other institutions;
7) Establish production contracts with its members, and on their behalf with other
people and institutions;
8) Sign agreements of technical cooperation;
9) Promote the PROVE-branded products among society and in the communication
media;
10) Undertake research for developing new products;
11) Purchase raw material for its members’ agro-industrial units: machines, equipment,
furniture and other utensils.
The scope of the interventions was small in the first years; little by little, the PROVE
producers started using the ASPROVE as main interlocution forum, and the association’s
influence together with the State grew in dimension and firmness. There were indications of a
potential break in the dependence on the tutorial role of the government.
The main ASPROVE activities were: to organize the sales of products in fairs, events, and
supermarkets and to open an institutional dialogue with government, supermarkets, and raw
material and supplies suppliers, with a view to getting comparative advantages. Moreover, they
organized training courses and trips to visit and collect information about similar experiences
in other States. The scope of action of the ASPROVE was restricted to the Federal District.
The training of its members and the commercialization of its products also took place within
the Federal District.
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Partnerships and strategies
The partnerships were specific, aimed at supporting the family business, and were established,
in most of the cases, with the following governmental organizations: SEAP - Secretariat of
Supply, Cattle and Agriculture of the Federal District, EMATER – Technical Assistance and
Agricultural Extension Enterprise, FZDF – Zoobotanic Foundation of the Federal District;
CEASA – Central Supply Offices of the Federal District , SAB – Supply Company of Brasilia;
CNPq - National Council of Scientific and Technological Research, by means of scholars
hired to provide technical advisory to the ASPROVE. Only one partnership was established
with a non-governmental organization – the APROVE - Association in Support to the
Programs of Verticalization of the Small Family Production. However, this partnership, that
was meant to be a “redeemer”, was not fully implemented due to political reasons.
Partnerships were established by means of contracts signed with public institutions that were
to provide support to PROVE (Carvalho, 1998).
The main strategies adopted were: to ensure visibility to the heads of ASPROVE among the
society, taking advantage of the success of the PROVE, increasing their self-esteem and
political strength for the negotiating their suggestions and demands; to establish partnerships
with several public institutions, so as to strengthen the “business” approach and ensure more
profitability in the agro-industrial activity; to draw a bill aimed at ensuring the continuity of
both PROVE and ASPROVE, as well as the fiscal incentives they were entitled; to create a
NGO to gradually replace the governmental support to the ASPROVE. The APROVE was
created with this basic aim of supporting the producers to add value to their production, by
means of the verticalization, and therefore ensure the social and economic development of
small family units, within an approach of sustainability and respect to environmental aspects.
An analysis of the partnerships and strategies
The creation of ASPROVE was part of a strategy to improve the functioning of the PROVE,
by strengthening the association, and to reach the sustainability of both. The government has
stimulated the ASPROVE to establish a number of partnerships.
About these partnerships (Brazil 2003) it was stated: “When the PROVE-DF was established,
in 1995, the relationship between the State and the family agriculturists (the “excluded” group)
in the Federal District could be characterized as inexistent. Faced with the inexistent formal
relationship between the State and the family agriculture of the Federal District, the local
government elected for the 1995-1998 term tried to force a connection. Strategically, it has
promoted a formal identification of the possible beneficiaries of the PROVE-DF, according to
criteria set by the Secretariat of Agriculture; later on, it has mobilized the technical assistance
of a team of agricultural extension experts of the EMATER - DF and other collaborators to
identify them in the rural area. Some mobilization meetings were carried out and the excluded
family producers were invited to join a process of social inclusion, promoted by this Program,
specifically oriented to the group of less favored agriculturists. These stages represented some
constraints for the efficient implementation of the Program, since they generated a delay in
accomplishing the goals and in building a bigger number of agro-industries.”
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During the implementation of the PROVE-DF, the State started establishing a closer
relationship with the excluded agriculturists. That was, however, a fragile and dependent
relationship, that demanded a broad and continuous State support.
The Program did not succeed in promoting institutional sustainability and a feeling of coresponsibility (ownership) among the several social actors, and became vulnerable to
oppositions and discontinuities.
After the end of the term of the government that instituted the PROVE-DF in 1999, there was
a rupture in the links established between the ASPROVE members, with a following picture of
discontinuity of the actions and political concepts initially conceived. The ideals of the
PROVE-DF were abandoned and neither PROVE nor ASPROVE resisted the lack of State
support. In November 2003, all the agro-industries linked to the PROVE-DF had ended their
regular activities. Some started to work clandestinely.
In the Federal District, in 2003 the relationship between the State and family agriculture
showed dispersion and neglect. The family agriculturists had not organized themselves
satisfactorily until that moment and the State promoted actions aimed at increasing the
production and productivity, focused only on the dinamization of "farming products", not of
sectors or groups of agriculturist families. It lacked an explicit concern with actions oriented
to building development in a sustainable basis.
The strategy adopted by the ASPROVE of ensuring themselves visibility, thanks to the
successful work of the PROVE, worked during the first government year. Later on, they
started loosing space in the media. Likewise, the strategy adopted of using the partnerships to
strengthen the “business” approach and, therefore, strengthen the association itself, succeeded
in the first government year, then started a downwards trajectory.
Results reached with the establishment of partnerships and strategies
While the partnerships established with several actors lasted, the ASPROVE members had
reached excellent results. In order to face the financial difficulties of the small producer,
mainly in moments of buying packaging and other supplies, the ASPROVE members took
advantage of the Small Agro-Industry Counter, that purchased huge amounts of supplies
and sold them at market price, although in accessible quantities and in several installments.
The ASPROVE members that lived and worked in distant agricultural communities faced,
among other problems, difficulties with the purchase and transportation of supplies or
products needed in order to cultivate their land and industrialize their production. As an
attempt to solve this problem, it was created the Commercial Traveler, to come over to see
them. During the week, employees of the Department of Commercialization of Farming
Material of the Zoobotanic Foundation would visit the communities to gather information
about the agriculturists needs. Afterwards, they would order the necessary products, receiving
them in the following week.
The ASPROVE members also benefited from the FUNSOL - Solidarity Fund, a special fund
created with resources of the Federal District Government, aimed at securing, together with
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Banks, loans of up to US$ 1,760, an amount enough for building or improving the premises of
a small (30 to 40 m2) agro-industry.
Members received training courses on hygiene, standardization, size and form, and other
relevant issues in the EMATER Training Center. They also visited supermarkets and received
guidance on how to go-to-scale in selling their industrialized or semi-industrialized products.
Main lessons learned
1. Members, PROVE producers, needed to spend more time involved in debates and training
courses on associativism;
2. The technicians chosen to support the producers in organizing the ASPROVE should have
a deeper knowledge of associativism and sustainable development;
3. The agro-industries should have been built closer to each other;
4. The PROVE producers, futures members of the ASPROVE, should have had more
financial stability before they formed the ASPROVE;
5. The ASPROVE should have worked in a more regular basis;
6. As soon as the 1995-98 Government requested its institutions to take care only of “the
excluded” target group, the actions related to both PROVE and ASPROVE became more
complex and harder to accomplish;
7. There is no possibility that a program like the PROVE fully succeeds unless it is part of a
state policy.
Main recommendations
1. In spite of all the difficulties, never to give up working with the most needed;
2. To motivate public institutions to support associations and programs for an excluded target
group, a difficult but necessary task;
3. To always look for ways to modify the mechanisms that reproduce social inequities;
4. All beneficiaries of a program of urban and peri-urban agriculture must join a parallel
activity of formal education;
5. To look for ways to establish a pact between the several political parties so that all social
inclusion programs are part of state policies, thus preventing that programs are labeled as
belonging to one or another political party.
6. To prepare the State, since although it sometimes takes the initiative to work with excluded
groups, it might not to be prepared for such tasks;
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7. The main lesson learned, after helping directly or indirectly on the implementation of
PROVE and of ASPROVE, and having prepared this case study, was that the process of social
exclusion can only be understood from the practice of those who make the social inclusion a
daily and constant exercise, that is the best way to say what we are and where we want to go.
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