Integrated production in Brazil: sustainable farming, safe foods.
: 1008 pp.
Abstract : The current situation in Brazil is extremely favourable for the production and supply of food, with a movement among farmers in the production chain to find ways of improving the quality of their produce in order to improve Brazil's competitiveness on the world market and to guarantee the supply of high quality, healthy and safe foods for Brazilian consumers. Competitiveness also requires the adoption of sustainable technologies by agribusinesses. To address these requirements, both present and future, the integrated production farming system (IPFS) is becoming increasingly adopted, broadening producers' horizons and providing a position to support the transformation of conventional production technology to one that is sustainable, traceable and certified, providing more added value to the final product and meeting market demands. Integrated production thus constitutes the evolution of traditional public regulations towards the standardization and certification of safe and sustainable production processes. The IPFS was first adopted in Brazil for fruit production in 2001 to allow access to the EU market. The subsequent development and present situation regarding integrated production in Brazil, in all areas of the agricultural sector but primarily in fruit production, are described in the 34 individually authored chapters of this impressive tome. Aspects covered by some chapters include (a) government policy regarding food safety, (b) rural cooperatives and consortia as export agribusinesses, (c) the promotion and spread of integrated production, (d) the behaviour of herbicides in soil, and (e) harvest and postharvest work and logistics of integrated fruit production, whereas the vast majority of chapters cover integrated production for individual agricultural products, including integrated production in apiculture (in the states of Santa Catarina and Piauí), fruit crops in general, pineapples, groundnuts, rice, bananas, potatoes, seed potatoes, coffee, cashews, citrus (in Bahia), cut flowers, cow milk, apples, papaya (in Bahia and Espírito Santo), mangoes, mangabeira (Hancornia speciosa), passion fruits, melons, sheep and goats for meat (in Ceará), peaches, soyabeans, tomatoes for fresh consumption and processing (and especially in the upper valley of the Peixe River in Santa Catarina), grapes (in the São Francisco Valley) and wine grapes. A CD-ROM supplied with the publication contains all the references cited.