Sales of organic products at supermarkets in Brazil should surpass 1.25 billion Brazilian reais in 2007, a 25% increase over 2006. The estimate is from the Brazilian Supermarket Association (Abras). Brazil is the world's second largest producer of organic products, and 70% of the sector sales are exports.
The Bio Brazil Fair – 3rd International Fair for Organic Products and Agricultural Ecology – is an opportunity to get acquainted with the advances in the sector.
The Brazilian Micro and Small Business Support Service (Sebrae) will occupy a 100-square-meter space, in which it will showcase the organic products of producers supported by 19 projects maintained by Sebrae, in 16 different states.
The event kicked off last Thursday, May 3 and will continue until May 6th, at the Biennial Pavilion in the southeastern Brazilian city of São Paulo.
The Sebrae units in the states of São Paulo, Mato Grosso and Amazonas also have stands at the fair. Another new feature that Sebrae prepared for the producers are business meetings.
With 6.5 million hectares of cultivated area for organic products, Brazil currently ranks second in the global ranking, second only to Australia, which cultivates 11.3 million hectares.
The international market acquires 70% of the Brazilian production. Within this scenario, Bio Brazil is a good space to showcase the diversity of organic products, raw or industrialized.
Curitiba
Earlier this year, an agreement was signed by the Brazilian Ministry for Agrarian Development and the Curitiba city hall for the construction of the first Permanent Market for Organic Products in Brazil.
The space will be exclusively turned to the sale of this kind of product on the retail market and will be in the center of the city, which is the capital of the state of Paraná. There will also be a reserved area for courses and preparation of organic products.
The piece of land was donated by the city hall and the ministry will invest about US$ 1 million in the construction, scheduled to be complete by the end of the year.
The president of the Association of Consumers of Organic Products of the State of Paraná, Moacir Darolt, stated that the demand for organic products in the state is 35% greater than the offer. The establishment of the market, in his opinion, may make interest rise.
According to the Paraná State Institute of Technical Assistance and Rural Extension, there are 4,132 organic producers in the state. In the last crop, 80,000 tons of products like beans, rice, soy, cassava, brown sugar and vegetables, among others, generated gross income of approximately R$ 90 million (approximately US$ 42 million).
Figures supplied by the ministry show that over the last six years, production of organic products in Brazil rose from 40,000 tons to 300,000 tons a year. This kind of culture involves around 20,000 producers in the country and 80% of the total are family farmers.
