Landless rural workers airdrop 4,000 kilos of seeds using a Federal Highway Police helicopter

Brasil de Fato

On Monday (3), the Landless Workers’ Movement (MST, in Portuguese) airdropped around four tons of juçara palm seeds in the town of Quedas do Iguaçu, Paraná state. The action was supported by a helicopter from the Federal Highway Police (PRF, in Portuguese) and inaugurated the 2nd Nature Day, organized by MST nationwide. 

With the slogan “Sowing life to confront the environmental crisis”, the activities will last until Friday (7), marking the week of World Environment Day, celebrated on June 5.

In Paraná, where the day was conceived for the first time last year, another 8,000 tons of juçara palm and araucaria seeds, both endangered Atlantic Forest species, will be planted (by air and land). It is also planned to plant 17,000 tree seedlings, through the creation and expansion of agroforestry systems.

“We understand that what is happening in our country, both in terms of intense periods of rain and drought, is the result of the environmental crisis caused by the capitalist system, which exploits and destroys nature,” said Bruna Zimpel, from the MST national leadership, under the wind of the helicopter’s propellers. 

“To deal with the climate crisis, actions of this kind need to be taken: rescuing species, planting trees, restoring nature,” said Zimpel. 

The sowing took place some 300 kilometers from the border of Paraná with Rio Grande do Sul, a state facing an unprecedented climate tragedy amounting to 2.4 million people affected. The seeds fell on the legal reserve areas of the Celso Furtado settlement and the communities of Vilmar Bordin, Fernando de Lara and Dom Tomás Balduíno. 

The initiative is part of the national plan “Planting trees, producing healthy food”, launched by the MST in 2020, to plant 100 million trees by 2030. According to the movement’s calculations, 25 million trees were planted last year.

Federal Highway Police helicopter

The partnership between the MST and the Federal Highway Police, unlikely in the minds of those who remember the police’s actions to prevent voters in the Northeast region from accessing polling stations in the 2022 elections or massacres in Rio de Janeiro, was made possible by local articulations in Paraná. 

The joint action was agreed during last year’s Nature Journey, the first year that Fernando Cesar Borba de Oliveira was in charge of the Paraná Federal Highway Police. With a degree in journalism and a post-graduate degree in political communication in Social Sciences from the Federal University of Paraná (UFPR, in Portuguese), Oliveira worked for Agência Brasil and trade unions before becoming a highway police officer in 2013. 

Commander Juliano Kunem, from the PRF’s Air Operations, said that the officers “feel happy to be able to contribute to a result scientifically proven as useful.” “May we plant a lot of juçara palm trees on the land where they are needed to restore nature,” added Kunem, himself the son of peasants from the region.

The costs of the flights are not covered by PRF. Organized with the Agricultural Cooperation and Agrarian Reform Association of Paraná (ACAP, in Portuguese), the initiative is sponsored by Caixa Econômica Federal, one of Brazil’s state-owned banks.

The MST’s journey also has a partnership with Itaipu Binacional, the Water and Land Institute (IAT, in Portuguese), Brazil’s National Supply Company (Conab, in Portuguese), the Brazilian Institute for the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (Ibama, in Portuguese), the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa, in Portuguese), among other public agencies and government ministries.  

“A crazy idea at first”

The idea of airdropping thousands of juçara palm seeds at once came up in an unpretentious conversation between two residents of the Dom Tomás Balduíno pre-settlement, in Quedas do Iguaçu, Paraná state. Josué Evaristo Gomes, the son of a couple of settlers, a scholar who researches the juçara palm and is committed to recovering the species in the biome, launched the proposal. He was joined by Tarcísio Leopoldo, MST’s leadership in the state of Paraná. He was the one who embraced it. From then on, the idea grew.

Josué was still living with his parents in the Celso Furtado settlement when a neighbor, Seu Liberato, commented that it was possible to make juice from the fruit of that juçara palm tree. “That fueled my curiosity, and I began to study what palm trees are,” he says. When he moved to the community where he lives now with his partner and daughter, he had this tree on his plot of land.

“I already knew about the species. I knew it was possible to earn an income from fruit without cutting it down. People didn’t know about this potential [for generating income],” says Josué. “Five decades ago, there was a lot of predatory palm heart extraction here in this region. That’s why, today, its presence is limited. So, I felt obliged to do something for this species,” he explains. 

“The idea was born on a trip, while we were chatting. It was a crazy idea at first, but it began to take shape,” says Josué Gomes, who helped create a juçara pulp and ice cream agro-industry in the pre-settlement.

Thriving

The first airdrop of seeds happened in June 2023, when around four tons were dumped on 67 hectares. This time, not only has the initiative expanded to include four communities, but it was also possible to assess the effectiveness of the previous action.

Around 10,000 juçara palm seedlings per hectare were identified by the postgraduate group in Agroecology and Sustainable Rural Development coordinated by Julian Perez-Cassarino, a lecturer at the Federal University of the Southern Frontier. In one year, they germinated and are, on average, 14 centimeters tall.

“We estimate that if we keep 10% of these seedlings currently in the forest, we would have an average of five tons of pulp per hectare. For BRL 20 (US$ 3,8), that would generate BRL 100,000 (about US$ 19,000) per hectare per year. And it would happen through enriching the forest, attracting fauna, allowing the recovery of other species and harvesting only the juçara fruit,” says Perez-Cassarino.

“People knew the juçara palm tree for its heart of palm, which means trees are cut down. When we collect the fruit, we don’t cut down the tree, and we use the seed to sow more,” adds the professor.