📋 Tender Overview
A workshop promoted by the Ministry of Integration and Regional Development (MIDR) this Wednesday and Thursday (22 and 23) will bring together experts to define the strategic agenda of the National Integration Routes. The program aims to encourage entrepreneurship, cooperativism and productive inclusion, enabling producers to work together, gain scale and be able to trade with other locations, states and even countries.
"This event is to strengthen the ties and governance of the Routes. Our joint action, with the ministry bodies and partners, translates into concrete deliveries for society. Brazil returned to the hunger map in previous administrations and this fact demonstrates huge inequality between regions. Investing in initiatives like this, which encourages the production and development of different sectors, will certainly contribute to changing this scenario, as determined by President Lula", stated the Minister of Integration and Regional Development, Waldez Góes, during the opening of the event.
The Routes are made up of networks of local production arrangements associated with strategic production chains capable of promoting productive inclusion and sustainable development in Brazilian regions prioritized by the National Regional Development Policy (PNDR). For MIDR's national secretary of Regional and Territorial Development Policies, Adriana Melo, the workshop is an opportunity for the collective construction of public policy.
"The National Integration Routes Program makes it possible for our actions to actually have an impact on the population and the transformational power of our regions”, he highlighted. “One of our needs is to advance in the integration of the different existing sources of financing and which need to be better articulated with discretionary budgets and parliamentary amendments, enabling credit to strengthen the supported sectors", he detailed.
After the official opening of the workshop, six working groups were set up, which will discuss ideas and improvements for the Honey, Milk, Poultry, Açaí, Lamb and Fruit Farming Routes. The proposals will be formalized at the end of the event, this Thursday.
Fruit growing in Alagoas
Luciano Monteiro is coordinator of the Rota da Fruticultura Alagoana and participates in the workshop on these two days. He believes that the debates will contribute to further improving integration between the program's actors. “The Routes allow us to achieve excellent integration between federative entities, private organizations and, mainly, cooperatives, who are the ones who deal directly, in the field, with small producers and their families”, he stated.
The coordinator also talked about activities on the Fruit Growing Route in Alagoas, which was the first to be recognized by the Federal Government. “The Fruit Growing Route is strategic because it manages to cross-cut the ICT, Honey, Biodiversity and Milk routes, for example. This is because the fruit serves as food and support for animals, in addition to influencing reforestation and the recovery of biomes. The Route involves the entire state of Alagoas and benefits more than 16,300 producers. There are 21 types of fruits already catalogued, such as coconuts, pineapple and bananas,” he informed.
Sustainability and innovation
The National Integration Routes Program was updated in August 2023, with the proposal to emphasize actions focused on sustainability and innovation and the inclusion of women and young people in the production process. Another innovation was encouraging the creation of startups and the search for partnerships with universities and teaching and research institutes, in order to find more efficient solutions for the needs of each local production arrangement.
The ordinance that established the new Rotas also created a national management committee for the program. “The committee will involve representatives from System S, other ministries and other partners, who will help us sign major national agreements that will be common to all ROUTES or that will be common to the hubs. The objective is to resolve structural bottlenecks that we see and that are responsible for the countless difficulties often found today in regional production chains”, explained Secretary Adriana.
