US$ 39.5 Million Loan to Support Small-Scale Family Agriculture in Brazil

The World Bank today approved a US$39.5 million loan for the Rio de Janeiro Sustainable Rural Development Project in southeastern Brazil. The project seeks to improve income and living conditions for an estimated 150,000 people (37,000 families or 30 percent of Rio de Janeiro’s rural population), improving access to basic socioeconomic infrastructure, increasing productivity and linking farmers to consumer markets.

“The Rio Rural Project is an innovative approach to small scale agricultural development.  It identifies and supports local production arrangements, self managed by the communities and integrates them with other public policies,” said Christino Áureo, Agriculture Secretary of Rio de Janeiro. “The participatory and territorial focus of the project make it possible to generate jobs and income in partnership with the private sector, while promoting environmental and social sustainability and strengthening the communities in their traditional activities. This will be a great step towards decreasing inequality and improving the quality of live in the interior of the State.”

Specifically, the Project will focus on enhancing the entrepreneurial capabilities and opportunities available to small farmers via participatory and decentralized actions, complementing and building on the results of the Rio Global Environment Fund Project (Rio de Janeiro Sustainable Integrated Ecosystem Management in Production Landscapes of the North and Northwest of the State).

“This project signals a new, full service, direction in rural development.  It will increase the communities’ productive capacity in a way that is socially, environmentally and economically sustainable. Socially, with community investments and integration to broader social policies; environmentally, with carefully developed territorial plans that integrate production, preservation and improved carbon balance through reduced greenhouse gases emissions and increased carbon sequestration; and economically, with the creation of linkages to stable consumer markets,” said Makhtar Diop, World Bank Director for Brazil.

The project will support:

• Improve small farmer productivity through technical assistance, adaptation activities and financial incentives;
• Enhance market linkages through investments in increasing the value added and inclusion in agricultural production chains, improved rural roads networks, and the coordination of public policies on territorial development;
• Strengthen long-term impacts on larger scale sustained productivity, by productive and environmental planning and training, as well as investments in agro-ecological and natural resource management activities; and
• Improve government support to the rural sector through support for institutional reforms, including more demand-driven and flexible arrangements, promoting a multi-sectoral vision, and broader participation of local actors in the design and implementation of rural development policies, as well as the creation of a long-term financing mechanism.