Novelties and Ambiguities in the Specification of an Amazonian Sociobidiversity Resource: the case of açaíAbstract
This article addresses initiatives for valorization and specification of territorial assets, taking as an empirical reference one of the leading forest extraction food products from the Brazilian Amazon: açaí. The objective was to analyze the main novelties constructed by different categories of territorial actors in the açaí valorization processes in northeast Pará, with emphasis on the ambiguities present in such processes. The methodological strategy was a case study based on 21 interviews with territorial actors, conducted from August to December 2020. The novelty emergence and territorial development approaches were mobilized for the analyses. The main result was that the consolidation processes for the organic certification and marketing of certified açaí represent sociotechnical novelties that are, however, permeated by ambiguities and contractions that restrict the number of benefited farmers.
Keywords:
Territorial development; territorial resources; organizational strategies; organic certification; açaí
Resumo
Este artigo aborda iniciativas de valorização e especificação de ativos territoriais, tomando como referencial empírico um dos principais produtos alimentícios da Amazônia Brasileira de extração florestal: o açaí. O objetivo consistiu em analisar as principais novidades construídas por distintas categorias de atores territoriais nos processos de valorização do açaí no Nordeste Paraense, com ênfase nas ambiguidades presentes nesses processos. Como estratégia metodológica utilizou-se o estudo de caso a partir da realização de 21 entrevistas com atores territoriais entre os meses de agosto e dezembro de 2020. Para as análises, foram mobilizadas a abordagem de emergência de novidades e a abordagem territorial do desenvolvimento. Como principais resultados, tem-se que os processos de consolidação de certificação orgânica e comercialização do açaí certificado representam novidades sociotécnicas, entretanto, permeadas por ambiguidades e contradições, que restringem o número de agricultores beneficiados.
Palavras-chave:
Desenvolvimento territorial; recursos territoriais; estratégias organizativas; certificação orgânica; açaí
Resumen
Este artículo examina las iniciativas de valorización y especificación de activos territoriales, tomando como referencia empírica uno de los principales productos alimenticios de origen forestal de la Amazonia brasileña: el açaí. El objetivo fue analizar las principales innovaciones construidas por diferentes categorías de actores territoriales en los procesos de valorización del açaí en el nordeste de Pará, con énfasis en las ambigüedades presentes en estos procesos. La estrategia metodológica utilizada fue un estudio de caso basado en 21 entrevistas con actores territoriales entre agosto y diciembre de 2020. Para los análisis se utilizó el enfoque de emergencia de novedades y el enfoque de desarrollo territorial. Los principales resultados son que los procesos de consolidación de la certificación orgánica y de comercialización del açaí certificado representan novedades socio-técnicas, pero están permeados por ambigüedades y contradicciones que restringen el número de agricultores beneficiados.
Palabras-clave:
Desarrollo territorial; recursos territoriales; estrategias organizacionales; certificación orgânica; açaí
Introduction
Given the risks associated with the hegemonic forms of production and organization of agrifood systems, collective initiatives that deviate from the productivist model have been presented as innovative in specific territories of Brazil. Some of such initiatives promote the specification and valorization of rural territory goods and services through the creation of collective brands and other quality seals that seek to distinguish the know-how and modes of production associated with the territorial specificities and markets (MEDEIROS et al., 2021; PRADO et al., 2022). If, on the one hand, the specification and valorization of rural territory goods and services potentiate the construction of new markets with an emphasis on the promotion of territorial economies and reduction of socioeconomic disparities, on the other hand, they are permeated by power disputes, ambiguities, contractions, and, not infrequently, social exclusion (ARCE; CHARÃO-MARQUES, 2020). Moreover, such initiatives do not always clearly incorporate objectives to promote the socio-environmental sustainability of production chains and territories (MILANO; CAZELLA, 2021). In light of this problem, this article addresses the processes of specification and commercial valorization of açaí, which is considered one of the leading extraction food products of the Brazilian Amazon sociobiodiversity.
Açaí, known in northern Brazil until very recently as food associated with lower-income people, became, from 2000 onwards, a desired product for national and international consumption due to its nutritional properties, with the prominence of antioxidant action. The increased demand for berry quality from the new markets encouraged some social actors operating in the region to seek organic certification of the product. As a result, in the Brazilian state of Pará, new organizational arrangements are being built around the production and commercialization of certified organic açaí.
With the attention directed to this food product from native non-timber forest extraction, in which productive management practices are associated with the know-how of family farming, we sought to analyze, with emphasis on the ambiguities and contradictions, the main novelties constructed by different categories of territorial actors in the respective valorization processes. This study was based on bibliographic and documentary research and 21 semistructured interviews. Such interviews took place from August to December 2020 in northeastern Pará, with sixteen non-associated riverine farmers who produce açaí and have no ties to social organizations, three riverine farmers who were members of an açaí producer association and intermediated the production of non-associated farmers (intermediary associates), and the presidents of an açaí producer association and an agricultural cooperative that acquires the organic açaí from the association. This farmer association and the cooperative are based in the Pará municipalities of Cametá (134,180 inhabitants) and Tomé Açu (67,305 inhabitants) (IBGE, 2022).
The “riverine” category mobilized in this study is referenced in the approaches by Cruz (2007) and Pereira and Witkoski (2012), to whom the riverine dwellers differ from other traditional Amazon peoples for presenting a peculiar way of life in their daily lives. This way of life encompasses a broad knowledge of extractive and agro-extractive practices in the water and land environments, including artisanal fishing, and maintaining intrinsic relationships with rivers and streams to transport both people and goods. For such, various adaptations occur in a family management environment of the family farm according to the seasons (winter/summer) and the sociobiodiversity resources present in it, but also in other natural spaces of extraction of such resources, such as upland areas, located outside the floodplain farms and used to practice slash-and-burn cultivations.
Although açaí extraction is the main income-generating activity in the community and is practiced by all families, some riverine dwellers carry out other activities and professions, such as carpenters, masons, teachers, painters, artisanal fishers, hunters, intermediaries, “peconheiros,”1 etc. This range of activities and professions not only complements families’ monetary income but also provides food for the family unit to consume.
Interfaces between the emergence of novelties and the specification of territorial resources
The idea that innovations are a type of “driver” of economic development, which emerged in the first half of the twentieth century (SCHUMPETER, 1985), generally persists in the contemporary neoliberal world (ARCE; CHARÃO-MARQUES, 2020). However, significant contributions have been made to the seminal notions of innovation. Authors such as Nelson and Winter (1977) evidenced that technological improvements of the past were cumulative, and innovations result from the evolution of knowledge, individual skills, and economic organization routines. To such authors, innovation also involves creating new organizational arrangements in the face of the need to combine existing praxis in the production environment and the limitations of models strongly oriented by productive functions.
Based on this understanding, the approach to sociotechnical novelties was formulated to evidence the creation of sociopolitical interventions contrary to the dominant regime. This approach is directed at the initiatives that emerged “from the bottom up,” which begin to potentiate coevolutionary dynamics with multiple interactions between the natural, the technical, and the institutional. According to Moors et al. (2004), new rural development designs conjugate multiple material and technical realities with different expressions of sociotechnical interaction and collective actions. A peculiarity of a given novelty resides in the fact that the knowledge mobilized by the social actors to promote its emergence is territorialized. However, to Arce and Charão-Marques (2020), the need to reorient the exclusively sociotechnical view of innovation to a sociomaterial perspective persists, which requires knowing the “materiality of the social” so to understand the alliances, struggles, contradictions, and conflicts involved in the emergence of innovations in a given territory.
To highlight the relevance of the territory in the emergence of novelties, Medeiros, Sablayrolles, and Cazella (2021) associated the notion of novelty production in rural territories with the initiative of social actors who value specific territorial resources. The creativity shared by territorial multi-actors and the historical trajectory of cooperation explain the more or less significant ability to do what other territories cannot or do not know how to do, but also to do it differently and better than other territories do (PECQUEUR, 2005; GLON; PECQUEUR, 2016).
Intending to deepen the theoretical-methodological interfaces between the approaches of the social construction of novelties and their territorialization, the experience analyzed in this article illustrates how the specification of territorial resources is connected to complex sociotechnical arrangements due to the diversity of actors, their different worldviews, and the several interests involved. Stemming from the formulations by Mollard (2001) and Pecqueur (2005), to whom territories are loci of resource specification and activation, we intend to analyze the organic certification process of açaí in the Amazon. This product of Brazilian sociobiodiversity is a territorial asset with the potential to value its specificity, given that it may hardly be found identically outside its territory of origin.
Collective strategies of açaí marketing in northeastern Pará
Northeastern Pará is a region composed of 49 municipalities, including Cametá and Tomé-Açu. The former stands out for the production of floodplain açaí and the latter for processing the berries from native species for producing pulps, most of which are exported to Japan, the United States, Argentina, and Germany (KONAGANO, 2014). The foreign açaí demand, which increased in the 1990s, influenced riverine dwellers to intensify the management of the stipes and expand the native açaí groves, leading to the “açaization” of the Amazonian estuarine floodplains (HIRAOKA, 1993, p. 5).
On the Guajará de Baixo island, in the municipality of Cametá, açaí palms have had a striking presence in the estuary since the 2000s, when intermediaries started to operate in the local market of the berry to supply agroindustrial enterprises in Pará. Riverine farmers who produce and supply açaí live on the banks of rivers and streams, maintaining constant relationships with the formal and informal markets to trade the production surplus (PEREIRA; WITKOSKI, 2012). The employment of açaí grove management practices, formerly in an extractive system, intensified to an agro-extractive management model. According to Homma et al. (2006) and Homma (2012), there is little or no interference of the anthropic action in managing the species in extractive açaí groves; in turn, agro-extractive management conciliates the stages of seedling planting, sowing, eliminating unwanted plant species, thinning the açaí palm clumps, and brush clearing. This set of management practices led to a decrease in native flora in some family farms, reducing the biodiversity of the floodplain ecosystem.
The reduction of biodiversity in floodplain açaí groves has contributed to erosion on the banks of rivers and streams, as well as the decrease in pollinating agents, which consequently interferes with nutrient cycling. According to Falesi and Silva (1999), the symptoms of this biodiversity reduction are perceived in the açaí palms, which present berry abortion, incomplete filling of the rachillae, and reduction and stagnation of the medium-term productivity, in addition to the yellowing of leaves and stipes and generation of thin palm hearts. In more extreme cases, this predatory practice results, above all, in the loss of the physical quality of the fresh açaí berries due to their excessive heat stress, thus compromising the marketing of this type of açaí berry in regional markets.
Given this scenario, some social organizations started to propose the mitigation of socioenvironmental harm related to monoculture production in the region, especially in the farms of their associated members. This was the case of a cooperative founded by immigrant Japanese farmers in 1949, in Tomé-Açu, which, at the time of writing, had 172 cooperative members in several municipalities of northeastern Pará and other regions of Brazil. Since the 1970s, the introduction of the Tomé-Açu Agroforestry System (FAFTA, for Sistema Agroflorestal de Tomé-Açu in Portuguese) in the farms of cooperative members has been the primary sociotechnical orientation. The SAFTA promotes fruit and forest species crops in the same area by employing technological devices that allow more significant environmental quality and profitability throughout the year.
In 1987, the cooperative installed a tropical fruit processing agroindustrial enterprise with an annual capacity to produce six thousand tons of fruit pulp, in addition to cocoa beans, cupuaçu butter, black pepper, and premium vegetable oils of andiroba and passion fruit. The raw materials come from 2,800 family farms registered with the cooperative, with 20% of the processed products coming from farmers who are not cooperative members. The physicochemical quality of these products is guaranteed by laboratory analyses carried out by the cooperative and by the organic certification, especially of the açaí, provided by IMO-Control do Brasil certifier.
In Cametá, an association created in 2007 and composed of 35 farmers from 23 islands of the municipality established a partnership with the Tomé-Açu cooperative to market açaí and receive technical assistance in the sustainable management of the açaí groves in their family farms. The articulation between the association and the cooperative was formalized through a cooperation agreement and the certification of the associates as organic producers. In 2010, the association had 40% of its members certified as organic açaí producers, whereas the production of the other 60% was marketed conventionally to various agroindustrial enterprises that processed the berry pulp. In 2020, 31 associates (90%) became organic producers. In addition to açaí, the riverine farmers of the association started to provide other products to the cooperative, albeit without certification: seeds of andiroba (Carapa guianensis Aubl.), ucuúba (Virola surinamensis (Rol.) Warb.), murumuru (Astrocaryum murumuru Mart.), and cacao (Theobroma cacao L.).
The analyses by Rodrigues (2021) evidenced that, among the organizational arrangements that emerged in the territory, some riverine farmers linked to the association started to intermediate the marketing of açaí from non-associated farmers to the cooperative. Besides the sales through the intermediary associates, there are other açaí marketing channels carried out by intermediaries, small-scale artisanal processing businesses, and regional fairs. Some riverine dwellers sell açaí un such spaces, thus influencing the amount paid per “barrel”2 of the berry. The intermediaries do not hold ties with the cooperative or the association. The açaí they purchase is sold as a conventional product to the agroindustrial enterprises operating in the Pará territory. In this type of market, the amount paid per barrel in the 2021 season (August to December) was R$30.00 (5,23 US dollars at that time exchange rate), a price similar to the amount paid by the intermediary associates to the other farmers. Differently, organic açaí, when transferred from the association to the cooperative, has a 10% increase per barrel. In fairs and when selling to small-scale artisanal processing businesses, the increase corresponded to 33% in the season and 200% in the off-season (January to June), when the production decreases by approximately two-thirds. It should be stressed that intermediaries and intermediary associates only operate during the season, while the channels that form the territorial açaí market predominate during the off-season.
In this territorial market, the açaí shaded by other native species, produced in the system present in the family farms of the associated farmers, is prioritized, as there is a more significant pulp yield compared to the açaí from intensive management systems that are more common in the farms of non-associated riverine dwellers. Considering the lower quality of the açaí the last provide, the non-associated riverine dwellers face difficulties accessing the territorial market, thus becoming dependent on intermediary associates and intermediaries to sell their berries. In shaded açaí groves, production can be extended to the off-season (January to June), albeit with a production decrease of approximately 70% relative to the season (RODRIGUES, 2021; FURLANETO, 2020). Conversely, in the family farms with açaí groves in systems resembling monoculture, the riverine dwellers live with the scarcity of the berry during the off-season, which compromises the income and food security of the families (RODRIGUES, 2021).
According to Rodrigues (2021), the cooperative influences the implementation of the Agroforestry System (AFS) in the associates’ farms. In partnership with the cooperative, the association prioritizes technical assistance in implementing sustainable practices, specifically in the floodplain ecosystem. The association members who practiced intensive management in the açaí groves before the partnerships between the two organizations currently diversify the production system, becoming more apt in income generation and food production throughout the year. This process has been intensifying through the production and management of native forest and cacao seedlings provided by the cooperative. The reforestation of riparian forests with diverse species once compromised by açaí monoculture has been very recurrent.
However, the non-associated riverine farmers, who provide açaí to the cooperative through the intermediary associates, do not receive technical assistance and are not included in meetings and lectures. To such farmers, the dependency on a single commercial product for generating income is high, and the possibility of integrating the organic certification process is still distant. Rodrigues (2021) stressed that, in the act of intermediation, organic açaí ends up mixing with the non-certified açaí from non-associates, thus violating the agreement between the organizations, failing to comply with the legal regulation that governs organic product systems.
Currently, most of the açaí passed on to the cooperative through the association comes from the non-associates’ farms. This practice is justified because the production of the intermediary associates is insufficient to meet the cooperative’s demand, in addition to providing a profit margin of approximately 20% per barrel, which the intermediary associate obtains in this type of intermediation. Moreover, the cooperative only purchases açaí in Cametá through the association. In turn, the other agroindustrial enterprises acquire it exclusively from intermediaries, as they prioritize product quantity over quality. Hence, the non-associate riverine farmers become dependent on these two types of marketing channels to sell the açaí (RODRIGUES, 2021).
Even with limitations and ambiguities, the sociotechnical articulation around organic açaí established between the cooperative and the association provides a set of benefits: income improvements stemming from the facilitated access to differentiated markets, guarantee of food security for the families resulting from the expansion of the AFS in the farms of the associates, and diffusion of sustainable techniques through the technical assistance. In this experience, practices and processes reconnect social elements (community, groups, institutions, knowledge) and material elements (soil, forest, seeds, fruits, agroindustry) to generate rearrangements that combine interventions in the biodiversity management practices of the associated and non-associated riverine farmers, leading to innovations and alliances but also ambiguities and territorial conflicts.
Increasing productivity or investing in the quality of the açaí: the coexistence of distinct production models
On the island of Guajará de Baixo, the açaí grove management practices are linked to the know-how, which involves the “knowledge and abilities” of the riverine farmers (NELSON; WINTER, 1977). Various new skills are constructed from relationships that coexist within the community and involve riverine farmers and external actors. These interactions influence the production of novelties related to the adhesion to management practices, which may differ between the farms of the same community and interfere with the quality of the açaí.
Before the economic valorization of the berry, the quality and productivity of the açaí did not differ in the farms that maintained extractive systems precisely because there were no management distinctions among the açaí groves. With the introduction of the management and the diversification of the practices adopted by the riverine farmers, the managed açaí groves’ productive increase is undeniable. However, the new practices entail lower quality of the açaí and degradation of the biophysical environment.
The best açaí quality is directly related to the shading provided by the native forest managed over time by the riverine farmers. If, on the one hand, the recent access to external markets (other regions of Brazil and international markets) implies the intensification of management for increasing production, on the other hand, this process results in the reconfiguration of the landscape, decrease in biodiversity, and lower açaí quality. Thus, riverine farmers face the dilemma of increasing production to the detriment of quality, with many adopting intermediary systems between two extreme productive models: one oriented to greater productivity (monoculture) and the other to more quality (AFS). This situation becomes even more significant because riverine farmers who participate in the construction of strategies for accessing differentiated markets present an incipient sociopolitical and economic organization.
It should be noted that açaí is the primary commercial product of riverine farmers from the studied territory, and most adopt combined marketing forms. The açaí from the AFS, thus of better quality, is sold in distinct territorial marketing channels. In turn, the açaí from more intensive productive systems, with less shading by the forest, thus resulting in a lower quality product, is sold to agroindustrial enterprises in the region. Although the price of this second option is lower than that of the first, the greater sale volume during the season compensates for this in the amount obtained.
The “açaization” in Amazonian estuarine floodplains, which began in the 1990s, intensified in recent years with the expansion of the consumer market. This productive intensification is closely associated with the technical knowledge of riverine farmers, who master both agroforestry management and more intensive production systems. However, this second option cannot be confused with conventional productive systems because it does not imply using synthetic chemical inputs, irrigation, and soil tillage by agricultural machinery. It is simply a matter of managing native açaí stems and eliminating competition for light, water, and nutrients from other tree species. The local river flooding dynamic favors the natural fertigation of the açaí palm stipes, due to the suspended sediments in the waters of the Tocantins River and its tributaries.
Although it may be understood as a sociotechnical novelty, the experience of creating a farmer association in the municipality of Cametá and the partnership established with a business cooperative interested in marketing açaí with organic farming certification is permeated by ambiguities and challenges, particularly regarding the integration of more family farmers. Upon comparing the number of associated riverine farmers (31) with the number of agricultural establishments (12,889) and the over 100 islands that compose the Cametá territory and that are fit to produce native açaí, one may notice how incipient the direct adhesion of farmers is to the organic certification initiative (IBGE, 2017).
This discrepancy is partly explained by the flexibility in the intermediation of the açaí from non-associates by intermediary associates and intermediaries. This common commercial procedure between different family farmer categories limits, on the one hand, the strengthening and expansion of the partnership between the association and the cooperative. On the other hand, there is a potential for deepening the specification of this territorial resource to intensify the adhesion of new açaí-producing farmers in the organic certification initiative.
Both the association and the cooperative have difficulties directly involving other riverine farmers in this process, without the intermediation of associates. The association managers justify that by the precariousness of the infrastructure and technical professionals the association has available. For example, there is no motorboat or fuel resources to facilitate traffic to the associates’ farms. Furthermore, there are only two technicians from the partner cooperative providing technical assistance to the association’s riverine farmers.
The non-associated riverine farmers are excluded from the technical assistance and rural extension municipality services. Technical assistance generally occurs when the riverine dwellers access the credit of the Programa Nacional de Fortalecimento da Agricultura Familiar (PRONAF, National Program for Strengthening Family Farming), aimed at açaí grove management. In such cases, the financial agent responsible for releasing the credit makes available the visit of a technical professional for the riverine farm, to provide guidance in the initial phase of the management.
The interviews with non-associated farmers revealed that, although most of them aspired to receive technical guidance, concerns about having to intensely change the productive system persisted. From 2010 to 2012, the technicians of a private company guided some riverine farmers from Cametá to remove the entire native vegetation and the cocoa trees near the açaí palm stipes to establish the açaí palm clumps in lines, with spacing similar to planted açaí groves. Since floodplain açaí groves are of natural regeneration, with no defined spacing, the riverine farmers who followed such recommendations had irreparable losses.
This insecurity and distrust were also present when the cooperative’s technical team started its activities with the current associated riverine farmers. According to these riverine dwellers, the cooperative technicians presented, little by little, the importance of maintaining and improving the more complex production systems, similar to the agroforestry backyards of Amazonian family farmers.
Although this socio-productive transformation of some family farms has been taking place with external technical support, many riverine dwellers remain distant from this knowledge exchange opportunity. It should be noted that the more geographically distant the riverine farmers reside from the association headquarters, the lower the chances of more effective participation. Such distance between the riverine dwellers and the association also facilitates the entry of intermediaries and intermediary associates into the different marketing arrangements.
If, on the one hand, the intermediation of the açaí from non-associated riverine farmers deviates from the agreements established in the partnership and the bonds of trust between the social organizations, on the other hand, it emerges as an alternative for riverine farmers who reside distant from the differentiated markets. For the non-associates, although the price obtained per barrel sold to intermediary associates and intermediaries is not the expected, the advantage in this type of trade comes down to the facilitation of sales, but not always with their guarantee. In the island of Guajará de Baixo, there have been cases of intermediary associates and intermediaries who stopped purchasing the açaí production of açaí groves in production systems resembling monoculture because the berries had a dried appearance, which reduced the pulp yield because the açaí bunches were exposed to sunlight for many hours daily due to the reduced plant biodiversity.
Even in times of adversity, the associated riverine farmers have an açaí sale guarantee, either on the territorial market or to the cooperative. In the 2022 season, still under the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, while the açaí-processing agroindustrial enterprises stopped operating, the cooperative partnered with the association guaranteed the purchase of the açaí production of the associates, respecting the biosafety measures of employees, associates, and intermediary associates advised by the World Health Organization. When marketing in fairs was halted due to biosafety measures, the “tuíra” açaí3, of better quality and produced in shaded environments of agroforestry or native systems, had its market ensured by small-scale artisanal processing businesses, which purchased on order straight from the producers.
Agreements are also established in the conventional market that, when not met, result in conflicts between the social actors involved. The representatives of the agroindustrial enterprises meet one month before the start of the açaí season to establish prices to be obtained in purchasing the production of the non-associates during the season. Likewise, intermediary associates and intermediaries define the purchase prices on “beiradões,” floodplain estuaries where the riverine farmers reside. The lower the purchase price, the more significant the profit percentage of these social actors. When agroindustrial enterprise representatives, intermediary associates, and intermediaries fail to comply with the agreement signed in the meetings of the monetary value established to be offered per açaí barrel to the riverine farmers, conflicts emerge in this sense. To increase their preference in purchasing the açaí, it is common for some social actors involved to fail to comply with the agreement and, regardless of the barrel price variation, offer around R$0,50 to R$1,00 (one to ten cents of US dollars at that time exchange rate) more than the competitors, as occurred in the 2021 season.
Conflicts also permeate the “beiradões” when the açaí barrel price offered by intermediary associates and intermediaries displeases most riverine farmers. In 2018, when the açaí barrel price at the “beiradões” reached R$12,00 (3,1 US dollars at that time exchange rate), the riverine farmers of Cametá and surrounding municipalities agreed and interrupted the açaí supply until the price was adjusted. In turn, during the same period, the cooperative managed to maintain fair prices in the açaí production of the Cametá associates. As one may note, the participation of riverine farmers in social organizations supports the category strengthening and the search for fairer prices in açaí sales.
The disputes between intermediary associates and intermediaries for operation spaces in the territories are not conflictless. On the island of Guajará de Baixo, two intermediary associates and four intermediaries who are local residents and work in this territory build their customer bases with the riverine farmers. In this sense, conflicts emerge between the parties when competitors interfere in these buyer/seller relations. Similarly, conflicts are evidenced when intermediaries from other territories enter the island of Guajará de Baixo to intermediate açaí, generating competition with the local intermediary associates and intermediaries.
The friendship bonds between intermediary associates and riverine farmers and the price obtained per barrel determine the choice of such riverine farmers at the time of sale. It should be noted that, in the act of purchasing the açaí, there is knowledge sharing about the sustainable management of the açaí plantations acquired by the intermediary associates in the meeting and technical assistance spaces promoted by the social organizations.
So far, the valorization of the agroforestry açaí best quality tends to be limited to the territorial market, which is structured without formal producer organizations’ presence and with scarce support from public actors. Therefore, the territorial shaded açaí market represents a specification front of this territorial resource that is still little explored by public and associative organizations present in the territory. The better physical appearance and larger pulp are easily identified in this type of market, which justifies the preference for shaded açaí and the higher value achieved per barrel. Shaded açaí greatly comes from farmers in the association, who hold the organic açaí certificate. However, in the territorial market, the berry is traded without this distinction because its superior quality and longer stipe conservation time, without drying compromising the pulp quality, are recognized by the other actors in the territory.
Conclusions
The ongoing processes related to the organic certification of açaí are understood here as a sociotechnical novelty linked to the conception of new markets that are even interconnected to environmental conservation. Despite the distinct participation levels of different segments of the productive and marketing processes, collective action was observed, the final purpose of which is the valorization of this territorial asset. The interactions between the different actors involved with the initiatives, even though incipient, generated unprecedented spaces for solving problem situations. On the one hand, this social construction of novelties initiatives imbued to valorize territorial assets have the potential to consolidate differentiated markets. The organizational strategies around the initiatives list aspects that could contribute to advancing the fair and sustainable use of sociobiodiversity. They also prove capable of stimulating the development of new products in the territories of origin.
On the other hand, the commercial valorization of this Amazonian sociobiodiversity resource may incentivize the intensification of its exploitation and the entry of new extraterritorial actors into the scene. The studied case points to the urgency of constructing territorial governance systems around the use of these resources that are capable of preventing the adoption of more intensive and predatory practices with the participation of public, private, and associative actors. Moreover, the rigidity of organic certification for access to specific markets also contributes to dissensions between discourse and practice regarding sustainability.
In general, this study opens possibilities for new research questions, such as the following: how does the açaí price rise due to export growth influence the productive system in distinct Amazonian contexts? What possible (in)congruences will be perceived between the discourses and practices of the social organizations in the açaí chain? What other sociotechnical and organizational adjustments will be made by the actors in the different territories to counterbalance the ongoing trend of productive intensification and guarantee access to increasingly demanding markets regarding the sustainability of the productive processes?
In addition to opening windows of opportunities for future studies, these questions evidence that, although the conception of novelties has acquired body within a perspective of scalar sociotechnical transitions, its territorialization and its reading through less structuralist lenses make the boundaries between different scales very tenuous. So tenuous that it is difficult to define the limits of the irradiation of transformations of a novelty. Hence, it is highlighted that one of the lessons learned from the analysis of this case is the understanding and valorization that the fluidity of these territorialized innovation processes is what potentiates them as promoters of significant social changes.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank FAPESC and FAPESPA for the support to the project titled “Inovação e transição sustentável: cesta de bens e serviços em territórios amazônicos” (Innovation and sustainable transition: basket of goods and services in Amazonian territories) (CONFAP Public Notice, Amazon +10 Initiative).
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1
- Riverine dwellers who can climb the trunk of the açaí palm to harvest the açaí bunch using a tool called “peconha”, traditionally woven from the açaí palm leaf or made from a polyethylene sack.
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2
- An utensil in the form of a basket used as a measuring unit in marketing açaí. It holds 14kg of the berry, the standard measurement of a barrel.
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3
- Açaí berry at an extreme maturation stage, with the seeds externally coated by a white powder that gives it better quality and durability time in the bunch and more significant resistance to drying.
