São Paulo – The challenge is to increase productivity, all the while better managing production and using more efficient techniques in the grazing land in order to gain space by selling milk in Brazil and abroad. As far as it concerns small farmers in the vicinities of Marília, in the interior of the state of São Paulo, 450 kilometres away from the capital, there will be plenty of buckets filled with the warm, tasty drink. In all, 18 municipalities are involved in a project that started in 2007, with support from the local Brazilian Micro and Small Business Support Service (Sebrae), named Lucra Leite (Profit Milk). The region has once been the state’s leading producer hub, a title that now belongs to Paraibuna, 120 kilometres away from the capital, and its surroundings.
"We have great climate, great rainfall, quality soil and ease of production outflow by two-way highways in good conditions, such as Castelo Branco and Raposo Tavares," explains farmer João Luiz de Andrade, of the Tupã dairy farmers association, 70 kilometres away from Marília. "We have everything it takes to increase our production scale, improve the quality of our milk and even export in the future," he says. Would the Arabs be potential clients abroad? "Why not? We need logistics, quality and quantity in order to reach the international market," he claims.
According to him, initiatives such as Lucra Leite are already starting to achieve results, which may be ascertained, among other factors, by the rising average price of one litre of the beverage. "We used to get 0.55 real (US$ 0.32) for one litre," he says. "Now it has gone up to 0.80 real (US$ 0.46) per litre," claims Andrade.
The manager of the Lucra Leite project at the Sebrae in Marília, Cristiane Souza Aguiar, explains that the initiative came up in 2007 and aims to improve the technology, social organization, management and market access among the region’s farmers. "We have developed actions such as the lowering of the price of grass, better use of the soil and teaching farmers to have more lactating cows throughout the year, for instance," she explains.
According to her, dairy entrepreneurs in Marília are fully able to export. "Product quality is very good," she says. "And there are farmers enough to guarantee a production scale, because 90% of small farmers in the region work with milk," she asserts.
Brazil is now the fifth country in the global ranking of milk production, after the European Union, the United States, India and Russia. A total of 1.3 million farms produce 29 billion litres per year.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
