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Overview
Overview
MeuCarbono works to intensify and diversify farming in Brazil and Urihi brings forest products to the world. An agriculture powerhouse, the country has seen a multiple-fold increase in productivity and expansion of arable area, but that came with a high environmental cost due to conversion of forests.
The country has millions of hectares of degraded pastureland, and we are working to bring finance, knowledge and new land-use model that are more profitable whilst at the same time nature-friendly.
We are also bringing nutritious forest products unknown to the world to global markets: home to 1/3 of the world's tropical forest, Brazil has less than 3% of the world's forest-friendly products market.
Our first projects bring agroforestry to restore slash-and-burn deforestation areas in the Amazon and the Cerrado, helping smallholder farmers to improve their livelihoods, and a model that combines silvopasture and forestry in Brazil´s countryside. Our first forest product is Aroeira honey, rich in polyphenols.
Key actors
Key actors
We are a collective that involves:
Our company: create, seek funding and execute projects, mobilizing local institutions
Universities
Farmers associations and government institutions
Cooperatives: gather and process non-timber forest products
Alignment with EAT-Lancet Commission
Alignment with EAT-Lancet Commission
Our new models bring diversification to areas that currently are or historically have been used exclusively for cattle ranching, transforming them into areas that grow multiple crops, nuts, honey, etc.
This also has a high impact on the environment, as these areas of degraded pastureland are turned into forests and agroforests, improving soil, biodiversity and, according to some scientific papers, even the nutrition on the food that grows on this environment.
Our goal is to bring “forgotten” forest products to the world´s diet, relieving deforestation pressure by enabling local communities to generate value from standing forests, and to implement a new paradigm in food production, where food comes from agroforests.
Lessons learned
Lessons learned
The farmers are very much willing to adopt new, more sustainable model when you can speak their language and approach them to show the opportunity.
Shops in Europe are very open to new forest products, they are exciting, nutritious and have a story of sustainability and livelihoods improvement.
Next steps
Next steps
Identify finance partners
Validate our pre-feasibility study with a detailed study
Implement pilot projects
Rollout/scale the project on the regions
For more information contact: Augusto Andrade at augusto@meucarbono.com
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