Bota na Mesa
Carried out by FGVces in partnership with Citi and sponsored by the Citi Foundation between 2015 and 2019, the Bota na Mesa project aimed to contribute to the inclusion of family farming in the food chain in large urban centers, considering fair trade, environmental conservation, and food and nutrition security.
In the first two cycles of the project, Bota na Mesa worked directly with nine organizations of fruit, vegetable, and greens producers in São Paulo's green belt, supporting best management practices, commercialization, and generating market access opportunities.
Starting in 2018, the project began to act more comprehensively in the chain, understanding that there are many relevant issues for family farming that go beyond commercialization.
Five themes were prioritized, together with a group of experts, on which the project focused its actions: Consumer Relations, Infrastructure & Technology, Youth in Agriculture, Agroecological Transition and Climate Change.
In 2018 and 2019, therefore, Bota na Mesa coordinated Working Groups with experts in each of the themes addressed, which resulted in a set of Public and Business Guidelines for the Inclusion of Family Farming in the Food Chain.
Since 2020, FGVces has been active in the agriculture and food agenda, seeking to support the implementation of the guidelines built by the various actors in the chain, whether through new projects or studies and publications.
Activities
The first year of Bota na Mesa's work was dedicated to diagnosing the cooperatives' management and relationship practices, evaluating the main commercialization channels already accessed and known, and selecting desired markets for sales expansion. At the end of that year, each cooperative built an action plan to access a target market, involving steps such as market research, financial analysis, and commercial meetings.
Bota na Mesa at FGV, in 2017.
The second year focused mainly on supporting and monitoring the implementation of the action plans. This cycle involved strong articulation with actors in the chain to carry out sales pilots and negotiations between producers and commercialization channels. This cycle also exercised, with the producer organizations, management and financial aspects to better structure them.
Besides this front with the producers, Bota na Mesa also held a cycle of workshops with a retail chain, the St. Marche Group, a project partner, with the objective of identifying challenges and opportunities for action aiming at the inclusion of small producers in its supply chain, seeking more harmonious relationship practices between retail and family agriculture.
As a result of these first two years of work, a publication was released with the learnings of the project and a set of recommendations for the chain related to the supply of large urban centers by family agriculture, which can be accessed here (portuguese).
Based on the lessons learned from the first two years of activities with family farmer cooperatives, and in line with the focus of FGVces in working on issues of the sustainability agenda in the scope of public and corporate administration, Bota na Mesa mobilized several organizations that make up the agriculture and food chain to build public and corporate guidelines for the inclusion of family farming.
Based on interviews, literature reviews, and the contributions of a multistakeholder group gathered in 2017 to discuss the main challenges of family farming in Brazil, five priority themes were defined.
Consumer relations: involved understanding what fair and inclusive commercial practices are, what the role of the actors in the chain is in promoting these practices, what the challenges are in implementing them, and how to overcome them.
Infrastructure and technology: analyzed challenges related to the availability of and access to technologies for family farmers.
Youth in agriculture: reflected on the conditions necessary for remaining in the field, carrying on work, knowledge, and local culture, to be an effective option for the youth of family agriculture.
Climate change: contemplated actions to promote the adaptation of family farmers to climate change and the ability to implement productive systems of low greenhouse gas emissions, generating effective value for families and for ecosystems.
Agro-ecological transition: discussed strategies to promote agro-ecological transition by family farming and to strengthen markets that recognize the importance of this approach for food and nutrition security and environmental conservation.
Working groups (WGs) were formed with various actors in the chain, which met throughout 2018 and 2019 for the collective construction of guidelines for each of the priority themes. In addition, the project conducted public calls in order to identify cases of innovation in family farming related to the themes, which would serve as inspiration for the process of building the guidelines.
The construction of the guidelines over two years involved the participation of representatives from more than 100 Brazilian organizations linked to the food chain, including family farmers, governments, large companies, startups, research institutes, and civil society organizations.
In 2019, in addition to the construction of guidelines on new themes, Bota na Mesa created a working group to build tools for the implementation of the guidelines, based on meetings with representatives of companies and governments interested in their implementation. The products of this stage involve reports with contributions for public policies focused on family farming and a document that brings guidelines to support the decision making of business managers, seeking the insertion of these themes in the organization's strategy.
Publications and Reports
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Novas abordagens na gestão pública para a cadeia de alimentos - introdução The series Bota na Mesa: new approaches in public management for the food chain seeks to contribute to the dissemination of public and business guidelines for the inclusion of family farming in the food chain, collectively constructed with a multistakeholder group, including municipal governments, state secretariats, retail chains, food industries, civil society organizations, and family farmers in the scope of the Boot the Table project. In light of the actions proposed for governments, the goal of this report is to contribute to the improvement of public management in food systems through a territorial approach. |
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Agricultura familiar e o setor empresarial: contribuições para uma cadeia de valor inclusiva How to promote integration between food value chains and the group of family farmers, which represents 77% of rural establishments in Brazil? This question was one of the great motivations for FGVces in conducting the Bota na Mesa project, carried out between 2015 and 2019, with the goal of promoting the inclusion of family farming in the food chain. Based on the publication 'Public and Business Guidelines for the Inclusion of Family Farming in the Food Chain', this report seeks to guide the actions of companies in incorporating priority issues in the food chain in their policies, practices, and processes. |
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Diretrizes Públicas e Empresariais para a Inclusão da Agricultura Familiar This publication seeks to support the formulation and implementation of policies, processes and practices that can make the food production, distribution and consumption chain fairer and more inclusive for family farmers. Its content systematizes the discussions held in 2018 and 2019 in multistakeholder working groups formed by family farmers, cooperatives, retail chains, startups, municipalities, state secretariats, and civil society organizations. In it, recommendations are presented for companies and governments in the food chain in five priority action themes: consumer relations, infrastructure and technology, and youth in agriculture (themes worked on in 2018) and climate change and agro-ecological transition (themes worked on in 2019). |
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Bota na Mesa - Agricultura Familiar e o Abastecimento de Grandes Centros Urbanos This publication brings together the lessons learned from the trajectory of the Bota na Mesa project in its first two years of operation (2015 to 2017), and shares the challenges identified for the inclusion of family farming in the food chain, as well as proposing recommendations that contribute to addressing them. |
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Guia de acesso a mercados para cooperativas da agricultura familiar This guide is the result of Bota na Mesa's work with 9 cooperatives and associations to support them in accessing markets. In it, readers will find a summary of the tools used, an explanation of their importance for market access, and guidelines on how to use them. |
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Bota na Mesa - Ciclo 1 em Revista This publication brings together learnings and partial results from the first year of work of the Bota na Mesa project with family farmer cooperatives in the urban and peri-urban areas of São Paulo. Between 2015 and 2016, the project worked on the fronts of (i) field training with 9 family farmer cooperatives and associations to collectively build marketing plans and (ii) mobilization with an "anchor" company from the retail sector to improve its relationship practices with family farmers of fruits, vegetables and legumes. |
Videos
Cases of Innovation in Family Farming 2019
The call for cases held in 2019 identified 12 cases of innovation in family farming that brought important contributions to the construction of public and business guidelines for the inclusion of family farming related to the themes of climate change and agroecological transition.
Cases of Innovation in Family Farming 2018
Through a public call, the project Bota na Mesa selected 14 cases of innovation in family agriculture, from several regions in Brazil, with the objective of inspiring discussions for the construction of public and corporate guidelines for the inclusion of family agriculture related to the themes of consumer relations, infrastructure and technology, and youth in agriculture.
Workshop with specialists 1
At the beginning of the project, in February 2016, we held a workshop with more than 60 actors in the food chain to present the project and gather contributions related to the challenges of including family farming.
Fair Day at FGV
In May 2017, the cooperatives and associations participated in a free fair held by the project inside FGV, whose objective was to bring producers closer to effective commercialization experiences. More than 50 boxes of fruits, vegetables and legumes were sold, in addition to a round of talks with banana producers from Vale do Ribeira, who shared their inspiring trajectory with the group.
Statement of a farmer participating in Bota na Mesa for Citi Foundation
As part of the Citi Foundation's effort to record and publicize the projects it supports, a video was produced in which Mr. Nelson, one of the farmers from AIPRO - Associação Isabelense de Produtores Rurais (Isabelense Association of Rural Producers), gives a testimony about his participation in the project's activities, the results achieved so far, and the changes he has already noticed in his daily life.
Partners
- Citi
- Citi Foundation
