On February 18th, Evandro Neves presented findings from his dissertation project in a BNRGI seminar at UGA. In his paper, “Collaborative arrangements on oil palm production in the state of Pará, Eastern Brazilian Amazon,” Evandro focuses on the ways family famers overcome challenges of integration in the oil-palm supply chain. He analyzes collaborative arrangements in the Tomé-Açu microregion, in northern Pará.
Tomé-Açu is home to Nikkei farmers, Colonos farmers, and traditional communities. Nikkei farmers are descendants of Japanese immigrants who arrived in Pará in the 1920s. Colonos farmers are descendants of rural migrants hailing from the Northeastern and Southern regions of Brazil who settled in the region in the 1960s. Evandro examines how these groups collaborate with each other and external actors to participate in the oil palm value chain.
One of paper’s takeaways is that in Tomé-Açu, agroforestry systems are creating economic opportunities and access to markets and promoting the social inclusion of Colonos farmers more effectively than state-led oil palm programs. Evandro will be continuing research on oil palm in the Brazilian Amazon as he works to complete his dissertation.
Evandro Neves is currently a PhD student in the Amazonian Institute of Family Agricultures (INEAF) at the Federal University of Pará in Belém, Brazil. From September 2020 to February 2021, he was a Visiting PhD student at the School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA) of the University of Georgia.