Severe droughts impact flour production in the Amazon – 09/30/2024 – Environment

The atmosphere is one of desolation on the floating boat of Henrique Alcione Batalha, 55. The space is the fisherman’s home and logistical base. It is clean, empty and silent, anchored in the still waters of the Paranã do Capivara, one of the countless tributaries of the Solimões River. The São Francisco do Capivara community is just ahead.

Alcione, who lives alone on the float, has his hands tied. He fishes for pirarucu, the giant fish that is a symbol of the Amazon. Fishing is carried out within a management plan, which includes surveillance, counting and capture in certain periods and quantities, with decisive financial returns for dozens of communities in the middle Solimões region. The arapaima, however, are inaccessible.

The sequence of extreme droughts, with unprecedented low waters in 2023 and 2024 in the region, isolated the lakes where the fish are. The stream that leads to the lakes has become a trickle and is impassable. The holes, even smaller watercourses that connect the stream to the wells, have disappeared.

Authorization to capture 650 adult arapaima has already been given, but community fishermen have nothing to do but wait.

Families lose income, experience difficulties purchasing food and water, and face food insecurity.

“The situation has been cruel these two years [2023 e 2024]”, says Alcione. “This year it’s even worse, the water dropped very quickly. And the river continues to leak.”

Without water, artisanal producers of cassava flour —the basis of food in the Amazon region— also live increasingly difficult routines in the middle of Solimões.

The communities are without rivers, streams and wells for the cassava to rest, necessary for the tuber to soften. They began to improvise in plastic tanks.

The water that used to reach the flour mills — the so-called “oven kitchens” — no longer exists. Younger people then carry bags weighing 70 kg to 80 kg on their heads or on their backs, after roasting in the kitchens. They walk for 15 minutes to an hour and a half to a watercourse.

There are no longer large rivers to transport bags of flour to Tefé (AM) and, from there, to Manaus. Large boats are then replaced by canoes, with fractional transportation of flour. A one-hour journey turns into six hours.

In the Apuí community, in the Lake Tefé region, Adriel Fonseca Cacheado, 27, participates in all stages of production. Roast in large pans. Bag it. On his back, he carries the bag with more than 70 kg of flour to the riverbank. Repeat this movement eight times in the same afternoon. Wake up early the next day and begin the journey to Tefé in a small boat.

“Our family, which has eight people, has been able to produce these eight bags per week. During the flood, we can produce 15”, says Adriel. “This whole way, during the flood, is by water, from my house to the port.”

The impacts of the climate crisis are systemic. The reality of fisherman Alcione is similar to that of 1,200 people, from 42 communities in the middle Solimões, involved in monitored pirarucu fishing. The management plan has assistance from the Mamirauá Institute for Sustainable Development.

Catching pirarucu can yield a gross profit of up to R$5,000 per person. At a market, a kilo of fish is sold for R$10 to R$12.

Alcione and ten other fishermen from São Francisco do Capivara organized a sulamba fishing trip at the beginning of this month. They said they had caught two tons of fish. Each won R$350.

In flour production, like Adriel, thousands of farmers started to work harder and seek adaptations in another year of extreme drought, described by some as even worse than the one experienced in 2023.

In the Tefé region alone, there are 3,575 farmers who grow cassava, according to data from the Amazonas government. Manaus is the main destination for flour produced in the middle Solimões region. Throughout the state, there are 18,400 traditional flour mills, which involve entire families and centuries-old techniques.

For pirarucu management and flour production, water and time for each stage are decisive. Extreme and successive droughts, outside the natural cycles of floods and droughts in the Amazon, have decalibrated this technique.

“The changes are radical, which shuffles the traditional knowledge of pirarucu management, such as that regarding deadlines and reappointments [cheias momentâneas dos rios durante a seca]. There is no longer predictability”, says anthropologist Edna Alencar, from the Mamirauá Institute.

“All of this impacts the ecology of the fish. The Capivara area, for example, was known for its abundance of small fish”, says biologist Jonas Batista, a technician at the institute.

Residents of São Francisco do Capivara are also having difficulty catching tambaqui and other species used in everyday meals. They receive Bolsa Família, but the main source of income is fishing.

“We are stuck here,” says Jocimar Rodrigues, 36. “I can’t remember worse droughts than those in 2023 and 2024.”

Rodrigues says that residents of more distant communities go hungry.

Most families do not have access to drinking water, and increasingly longer journeys are required for subsistence fishing.

In the case of cassava flour, production was reduced by half. This is what happens in the quilombola community São Francisco do Bauana, neighboring Apuí.

“The worst droughts are those of 2023 and 2024, when we produced less. If there is no place to soak the cassava, production stops”, says Adrison Rocha da Silva, 37, vice-president of the community.

Maria Ezimar, 53, has been without access to wells in São Francisco do Bauana for two years. For the first time, her family uses plastic tanks in production.

“In other years, it wasn’t as dry as it is now. And the drought didn’t last as long,” says Ezimar. “It’s just mud.”

A significant portion of flour producers need quick access to money from sales and also new ways of transporting the product to cities. Therefore, the existence of middlemen is common. A kilo of flour, paid by these resellers, costs around R$4. Those who manage to reach the markets in Tefé can sell the product for double the price.

Apafe (Association of Residents and Agroextractivist Producers of the Tefé and Surrounding National Forest) developed a brand for the flour produced in the communities, explaining the origin and quality of the product. In this case, a kilo of flour can cost R$14.

“Production has dropped a lot, and there is a growing loss of plantations,” says Zila de Castro, 38, who is on the board of Apafe.

Drought affects family farming production and fishing management differently in different communities.

In Jurupari, on the Japurá River, the indigenous kokamas have managed to capture a few pirarucus, after long journeys to reach the lakes and transport the fish on their backs, in a route where there used to be water. They also fish tambaqui and surubim. The fish are taken to the Alvarães (AM) fair.

And, in the Santa Clara community, where Solimões also became a desert, farmers gave up planting watermelon, after losses in 2023. Vegetable cultivation, this year, was moved closer to the water, in areas that flood during floods.

Fishermen and farmers who directly experience the impacts of the climate crisis say that, despite the predictability of severe drought in 2024, there were no preventive or emergency actions by public authorities.

Arapaima workers demand access to basic food baskets and drinking water, postponement of deadlines for pirarucu and tambaqui management plans, advance payment of closed season insurance — paid during the fish reproduction period.

Flour producers want communities to be equipped with vehicles that facilitate logistics during the drought, as well as support to transport production.

The municipalities of Tefé, Alvarães and Maraã — to which the communities covered by the report are linked — did not respond to questions.

The Lula (PT) government said it had delivered 13 thousand food baskets to families impacted by the drought, through the Ministry of Development and Social Assistance. Among them, 850 baskets for fishermen and extractivists in the Tefé region and 80 for fishermen in the Alvarães region.

The forecast is that another 10,000 food baskets will be delivered in the middle of Solimões.

On the 10th, Lula visited Tefé and announced measures to combat the drought in Amazonas. According to the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change, states and municipalities receive resources through the National Civil Defense System, which can be used to purchase water and food. A crisis room was created by the government to provide assistance, the ministry said.

In a statement, the administration of the governor of Amazonas, Wilson Lima (União Brasil), stated that “logistical issues” hindered the delivery of 2,000 basic food baskets destined for Maraã on the 14th. 2,000 baskets are also planned for the Alvarães region. According to the government, both cities have water purifiers.

Where there is pirarucu management, the hope is for a repiquete, a momentary increase in the volume of water before the flood. If the stream rises 5 meters, fishermen will try to reach the arapaima.