Baskets filled with acai at a market in Belem, Brazil, on August 4, 2023 (AFP/Archives/EVARISTO SA)
In stifling heat, José Diogo climbs a palm tree to pick a bunch of black berries that look like big blueberries: it’s the start of the acai harvest, the emblematic fruit of the Brazilian Amazon.
The boom in this fashionable fruit, prized by Hollywood stars for its energy and antioxidant properties, is supporting dozens of small producers.
But the success is such that the trend towards monoculture in certain areas threatens the biodiversity of the largest tropical forest on the planet.
José Diogo, 41, lives in an Afro-Brazilian quilombola community, the name given to the descendants of fugitive slaves, 120 km from Belem, capital of the state of Para (north), where the conference of the UN Climate Conference COP-30.
Acai berries on a plantation in Abaetetuba, in the northern Brazilian state of Pará, on August 4, 2023 in the Amazon, on August 4, 2023. Since acai rose to international fame in the 2000s, touted for its rich nutritional and antioxidant properties, it has unleashed an economic boom for traditional farmers in the Amazon region, and been lauded as a way to bring “green development” to the rainforest without destroying it. But experts say it is also threatening the Amazon’s biodiversity, as single-crop fields of acai palms are becoming increasingly common. (AFP/Archives/Evaristo SA)
Located in the municipality of Abaetetuba, his village, Igarape Sao Joao, is on the banks of the Itacuruça River, where the soil, which is flooded for part of the year, is fertile ground for the pinot palm, on which the acai grows.
“When the picking starts (it takes place from August to January), our situation improves a lot,” he told AFP, while shelling the large clusters that hang near the top to make the berries fall into a large basket.
On a good day, he fills 25 baskets of 14 kg. Each of his baskets can earn him up to 25 reais (about 4.75 euros), depending on the price of the acai.
Acai sold in the market in Belem, northern Brazil, on August 4, 2023 (AFP/Archives/EVARISTO SA)
Intermediaries buy the berries from his community and bring them by river to Belem, where they are resold as quickly as possible to prevent them from spoiling.
In the traditional Ver-o-peso market, founded in 1901, dozens of sweaty men unload acai from their boats in the middle of the night and quickly find buyers at manufacturers of pulp, juice or other products extracted from the berry. .
Maycon de Souza, 30, piles three baskets on his head and two more on his right shoulder: 70 kg in total.
“In one night, I can earn 300 reais (about 57 euros),” he says.
– Biodiversity in danger –
The state of Para concentrates more than 90% of Brazilian acai production.
In recent decades, the consumption of this “superfood” has exploded, well beyond the borders of Brazil, in juices or high-energy sorbets.
Jose Santos Diogo harvests acai from a palm tree on a plantation in Abaetetuba, northern Brazil (AFP/Archives/Evaristo SA)
Acai production has long been presented as a model of “bio-economy”, a source of income for local populations in the Amazon without cutting back on the forest.
But studies have shown that this expansion is harmful to biodiversity, when the pinot palm takes the place of other native species.
“In the natural state, there are 50 to 60, even 100 per hectare. If we exceed 200, we lose 60% of the biodiversity in these floodplains”, explains biologist Madson Freitas, researcher to AFP. at the Emilio Goeldi Museum in Belem.
Monoculture is also detrimental to the acai harvest: the disappearance of certain plants affects pollination by insects such as bees, ants or wasps, which causes production to drop.
– “Social investment” –
Madson Freitas, himself from a Quilombola community in Para, believes that sustainable acai production is possible, provided stricter rules are established to avoid monoculture.
Extraction of acai berries in Abaetetuba, northern Brazil, August 4, 2023 (AFP/Archives/Evaristo SA)
He also advocates “social investment”, through subsidies, for example, to encourage small producers to “preserve the forest”.
Salomao Santos, community leader from the village of Igarape Sao Joao, acknowledges that the monoculture of acai “can become problematic”.
“We survive thanks to the Amazon and the Amazon does not survive with a single species”, he insists, recalling the ephemeral cycles of rubber or sugar cane at the beginning of the last century in the Amazon.
Aerial view of acai berries on a plantation in Abaetetuba, northern Brazil, on August 4, 2023 (AFP/Archives/Evaristo SA)
Salomao Santos leads the Malungu association, which represents the quilombola communities of Para. “We are doing a great service to the world by preserving the forest. Now we want the state and all those who profited from the sweat and blood of slaves to pay their debt.”
According to the latest census, 1.3 million people live in Brazil’s 3,500 quilombola communities.
© 2023 AFP
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