Indigenous people and small producers plant coffee in Rondônia and challenge common sense

The area available for planting is small, just over four football fields. But that didn’t stop indigenous Valdir Aruá, 49, from planting coffee in the middle of the Amazon and starting to support his family with a crop that has grown in a hot region, without having to expand the area.

Like Aruá, who lives in the Rio Branco indigenous land, small rural and indigenous producers have challenged what common sense says about coffee –that it can only be produced in colder places– and are growing more and more in 15 municipalities in Rondônia .

Responsible for 97% of the coffee in the Amazon region, according to Embrapa, Rondônia has produced coffees that exceed 90 points —those that exceed 80 are considered special — thanks to the variety chosen.

Canephors, like the Amazonian Robustas planted in the state, are more resistant to heat than Arabica, which predominates in crops such as those in Minas Gerais, the country’s largest producer, and which adapts better to mild temperatures.

“I didn’t know I had good coffee, and that it could be improved. Much of the coffee I sold was classified as a commodity, but it was more than that,” said Aruá, who lives in Alta Floresta D’Oeste.

He says that producers from the other 14 municipalities in the region are not competitors, but partners, and that this has contributed to all of them growing. Six people in the family, including his wife, Maria Aparecida, take care of the 8,000 planted trees.

“I don’t use chemicals. I still don’t have the organic seal, but that’s the next step,” he said, who sells coffee under his own brand, sold in microlots.

Embrapa Rondônia says that there are 17,000 families growing coffee in the region called Matas de Rondônia, which currently produce 2.4 million bags in a total area of ​​70,000 hectares (98,000 soccer fields).

20 years ago, according to Enrique Alves, 44, an Embrapa researcher and doctor in agricultural engineering, production was 2 million bags, but in an area greater than 300,000 hectares (420,000 soccer fields).

“Coffee does not harm the Amazon at all, since production grows without expanding the area”, said Alves.

Data from Conab (Companhia Nacional de Abastecimento) show that, at the beginning of this century, the cultivated area reached 318 thousand hectares, with 245 thousand hectares in full production, which added up to 1.9 million bags.

The gradual drop in prices in the following years —there was a year with a reduction of up to 35% compared to the previous season— caused producers to give up the crop and seek other activities. From 2001 to 2018, the planted area reduced by 74%, but productivity rose by 292%.

During this period, the key was already turning to the sector, and producers began to adopt technology, with genetic advances, irrigation, fertilization and improvements in management.

“If we have an agriculture that went from 8 bags per hectare, almost an extractivism, and today we are at an average of 40, it means that the producers are doing something right. Their terroir is the mixture of genetics, environment and management”, said the researcher, who has been working at Embrapa Rondônia since 2010 in the areas of harvesting, post-harvesting and coffee quality.

In his evaluation, if the area of ​​350 thousand hectares were once again occupied by coffee in the state, 14 million bags could be produced, without any deforestation. The organ, this year, estimated the total production in the country of canephoras (robusta and conilon) at 16.9 million bags.

In Novo Horizonte D’Oeste, Geanderson Gambarte belongs to the third generation of coffee growers in the family, but it was only in 2018 that he discovered that he had special coffee in the field.

He and other producers have won prizes in coffee quality contests, as happened at SIC (International Coffee Week), in Belo Horizonte, last month.

At the event in the capital of Minas Gerais, packages of 250 grams of specialty coffee from producers in the state cost R$50 (R$200 a kilo), depending on the quality. The assessment of coffee growers is that in the past the product was classified by its defects, and not by its qualities, and that the process has been reversed in recent years.

“I was in the city, but in 2018 I decided to return to manage the site. The work was more rudimentary, but we started with technology, expanded the area and in 2021 we started working with specialty coffees. We are growing with management and genetic improvement. We want to reach 120 bags [por hectare] in 2024”, stated the producer.

The total area available on the Gambarte property is 5.2 hectares, of which 3.8 hectares are in production and yielded 270 bags in the last harvest, an average of 71 bags (60 kg) per hectare —well above the state average of 40. In quality contests, he had microlots that reached 92 points.

“Demystifying this legend that attacks the Amazon is our biggest challenge. There is no risk. What reason would I have to destroy the environment in which I live and which sustains me?”, he questioned.