Indigenous people use drone to regenerate crops in Mato Grosso – 08/26/2023 – Market

The way to reach the Caçula indigenous village is marked by a journey of an hour and a half starting on the BR-158 and made mostly on dirt roads, surrounded by vegetation that is very dry at this time of year and prone to suffering from fires.

In order to try to detect fires in the Cerrado more quickly and, at the same time, have access to sustainable practices and state-of-the-art technologies to boost revenues from agriculture, Xavante indigenous people from Canarana (MT) are being trained with drones in a project that involves also settlers and small producers from Mato Grosso.

Initially implemented in three Xavante and Boe Bororo villages at a cost of R$ 1.6 million, the project should reach 30 villages in Mato Grosso, Mato Grosso do Sul and Tocantins over the next two years, with an investment of R$ 3 millions.

Canarana is a municipality extremely linked to agribusiness and is among the 40 richest in the sector in the country, thanks mainly to the production of soy, but not only.

With 357,000 hectares planted, it is the eighth soybean producer in the state and the 13th in the country, in addition to being the second largest producer of watermelon and melon in Mato Grosso. He also earns income in the countryside with other activities, such as fruits (papaya, passion fruit and banana, among others), rubber, sesame and milk.

This has attracted dealerships from major manufacturers of agricultural machinery and implements to the city, which has been operating for less than 50 years, in addition to housing units from groups such as Cargill and the Louis Dreyfus Company.

“The drone came up when we worked in the brigade [de incêndios]. We were impressed and really liked this tool so new that it arrived. It will help a lot to be able to reduce the fire, take the image [do local atingido] and have easier access”, says Felisberto Uruna Tseridzati, head of the brigade and one of the four indigenous people already prepared for the actions of monitoring fires.

The training began after he approached the Bunge Foundation to participate in a drone and georeferencing course offered in the state.

The project is developed by the foundation, Bunge’s social arm, and involves bodies such as Funai (National Foundation of Indigenous Peoples), Canarana City Hall, an agricultural company, Empaer (Company of Mato Grosso Research and Rural Extension) and villages in the municipality .

Canarana has 2,234 indigenous people, according to the 2022 Census of the IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics), distributed in about two dozen villages.

In addition to preventing fires from harming native vegetation and indigenous planting areas, the idea is to promote low-carbon agriculture in the soil and water, without deforestation, and to expand technical knowledge for the production of basic food items. Brazilian, such as rice, beans, cassava and corn.

The first stage with the indigenous people began a month ago, when they received three drones. A Sheet accompanied the second phase, with the delivery of tablets and, in the sequence, they will have notebooks to help with the work in the Pimentel Barbosa indigenous land.

Franço Owari Xavante, who is undergoing training and has difficulty speaking Portuguese, says that even because of this, he faced many challenges in learning, but he was interested in the course and put in a lot of effort to be able to work in the brigade and protect the indigenous land.

The hot spots in the area are below those recorded in 2021, an extremely dry year in the Midwest, but are equal to those of last year – 13 in July each year. There is no record of deforestation in the area in the last five years.

Data from Inpe (National Institute for Space Research) show that the city is the 15th with the most records of outbreaks in the state this year.

Francisco dos Santos Magalhães, a Funai technician who has worked with the Xavantes since the 1970s, says that their situation is critical and that the program will contribute to the people, who occupy an area of ​​328,000 hectares.

“There is Bolsa Familia, but it is not enough. It serves several things within the community, not only food, but clothing, shoes, everything. One of the problems is that an incorrect diet has entered their culture, which has brought a enormous damage to health”, he says.

The global program, involving other areas, began in 2022 and, since then, has trained 12 agricultural technicians in low-carbon agriculture —who pass on the learning to 53 farmers who are part of the project— and another 71 students have received training in georeferencing and drone use in partnership with the IFMT (Federal Institute of Mato Grosso).

Rural producers are being trained since the first semester for assisted pollination, recovery of degraded areas and integrated production between crops, livestock and forestry — with pequi and baru planting.

Pollination is being encouraged in the Suya settlement to improve the productivity of soy planted in the region and also generate honey for the settlers to sell. Today, the city produces four tons of honey a year.

Small producers have offered boxes of bees to large farmers, with the aim that both would benefit—the large producer with increased productivity, and the small producer with income from honey production.

Bees can increase productivity by up to 12%, according to a study by Embrapa (Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation).

“The proposal is for the technology to reach the small producer, to increase income and also allowing him to remain in his territory. This contributes a lot to more sustainable development”, says Cláudia Calais, executive director of the foundation.

Secretary of Agriculture and Environment of Canarana, Cleyton Dias de Souza says that the intention is to expand the program, so that more producers are benefited.

“It serves more than 50 producers, but we have more than 600 that are small. We have 220 soy producers, there are still many producers to be reached”, he says.

160 boxes of bees were delivered by the foundation and the municipality obtained another 40 from the state government, according to him.

“Beekeeping is working very well, one thing leads to another. A liter of honey has cost from R$80 to R$100, it’s a good income”, says family farmer Aparecido dos Santos Pereira, who lives in the Suya settlement, created 15 years ago.

The site is home to 67 families, each with an area of ​​12 hectares, four of which are legally reserved.