The SUS Model can revolutionize technical assistance in the Amazon Region

On the first day of the Amazon Summit, on August 8^th, President Lula stated that the Amazon Region “is an incubator of knowledge and technology that we are just beginning to dimension”. The first step for this to materialize is inevitably to increase investments in Ater – Technical Assistance and Rural Extension.

To advance the country´s productive chain, it is fundamental to provide special attention to support offers from Ater, especially in the Amazon Region, where small producers without access to major agribusiness (cattle, soy, corn, etc.) encounter difficulties for ongoing and consistent access to a specific Ater. This is analyzed by a newly released study from Instituto Escolhas entitled “Technical assistance for the bioeconomy in Amazonia: from challenges to solutions”.

“We know the organizations who offer a highly qualified Ater in the Amazon Region, including in the surveyed territories. But our intention with this study was to look at the gaps that continue to maintain technical assistance in the Amazon as an element of challenge rather than solution”, explains Sergio Leitão, executive director of Instituto Escolhas. “By analyzing the collected data, the importance of investing in the coordination of actions and support offers is evident. And, to make this viable, the State has to increase its presence”, he states.

The study interviewed producers of açaí, andiroba, cocoa, Brazil nuts and arapaima fishes that demand Ater and different types of organizations providing the service in eight specific territories in the Amazon Region. Regularization, financing, governance, management, certification, access to markets and research are common demands by producers, no matter the production chain involved. “And this shows how much we still have to structure since these are absolute priority themes to boost an economically viable production chain”, emphasizes Leitão.

To organize Ater support offers into a unified system inspired by the model of the Unified Health System (SUS) is the main proposition raised by the study. “The country already has a National Technical Assistance and Rural Extension Policy (PNATER), but the principles of that policy, as decentralization and social participation, do not find concrete instances and structures to be effective. In other words, we did not find an effective coordination and integration between public and private Ater agents in the analyzed territories, states the director.

Regionalization and hierarchization of the service – two SUS guidelines – could reorder this scenario, by ensuring for instance, that all producers have access to necessary services, even if not available at their locality.

The role of regional coordination in the Amazon Region would be provided by the public Ater institutions, while implementing PNATER in defined geographic units, ensuring optimization of financial and human resources already contributed by organizations offering the service.

Some study data

Based on primary and secondary data, the study identified 131 demands for technical assistance in the analyzed territories.

The number and availability of technicians was one of the main critical points indicated by the organizations that offer Ater, with the private sector being the main responsible for technical assistance for the bioeconomy, corresponding to 52% of the total organizations that took part in the study. Another critical point indicated by 75% of the organizations is the scarcity of resources needed to maintain the service offer in a constant and consistent manner.

Challenges related to logistics were mentioned in all chains as a field where the provision of Ater would be much welcomed.

Learn more about the study here.