Maria Adenilde de Andrade is a family farmer in the Cerrado, Brazil. She’s been farming for decades with her husband and two daughters. 

In Brazil, more than 28 million people—over 10% of the population—are hungry. At the same time, agricultural activity is driving significant environmental degradation, accounting for 97% of native vegetation loss, particularly in the Cerrado and Amazon regions. Agriculture also contributes around 10% of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions.

Maria and millions of other family farmers produce most of Brazil's food and are leading the implementation of nature and climate resilient practices. Yet, they often face major barriers to accessing the resources needed to shift their practices. 

In Brazil, a national credit programme for small-scale farmers is one solution to help strengthen family farming for farmers like Maria. While this programme is a powerful tool, it is largely inaccessible due to bureaucratic complexity, limited information on how to apply it, and inadequate support mechanisms. 

Like so many other farmers, Maria wasn’t able to access the credit she needed to transition to regenerative agriculture farming approaches that can sustainably feed and employ a growing population, provide agency, freedom, and dignity to billions relying on small-scale farming.

In 2012, Maria started working with the family farming cooperative known as CoopCerrado. This cooperative works with farmers like Maria to provide access to the national credit programme so that they can harvest and process food products in an equitable and sustainable way.

“For me, agroecology is everything in my life. I imagine sustainability for the future. It has changed my life. Before, we did not have the resources to develop our work.”

Access for family farmers like Maria to public credit is crucial to help farmers break cycles of exclusion and regain the dignity to make autonomous choices about how they farm, what they grow, and how they care for their land.

“Access to credit has changed the way we work because we have the opportunity to buy the resources we need to invest in agriculture. Whether it's buying materials, irrigation, or labour. Sometimes we can't handle the work alone, with just my husband and I, so we need to find more people to help. Access to credit has allowed us to generate income for ourselves and for the people we work with.”

At Porticus, we work with many partners across the world to advance policies that support family farmers like Maria transition to sustainable, inclusive and regenerative agriculture practices.