David and Goliath in the Forest

Ilson Martins Silva is a small farmer in São Félix do Xingu, and the Director of Cappru, the area’s leading cooperative focused on cacao farming. His farm is less than 250 acres – a small farm, by the Brazilian government’s classification – but he fits a lot into them, ranching from a lifetime of memories to a new approach to agriculture.

“My dad bought this land 22 years ago. I liked fishing with him; we caught a lot of fish. There were a lot of forests then, a lot of green.” Thirty-one years old, Ilson has seen the region where he grew up change dramatically. Since the 1990s, unplanned expansion of ranching activities and other activities have eliminated a significant part of the Forest, without improving living conditions for small landowners. On the contrary, influenced by the region’s culture of deforestation, many landowners replaced forests with pasture – but now they struggle to make a living. To make ranching profitable here, you need good technique, as well as economies of scale, which are impossible on a small property.

“The government and banks encouraged deforestation. If you applied for a loan, they would only give it if you had cleared half your land. They said that was the only way you were prepared for growth.”

A not very sweet beginning

Realizing they needed to find another way to make a living, Ilson’s dad and a few of his colleagues founded Cappru – the Alternative Cooperative of Small Rural and Urban Farmers of São Félix do Xingu (Cappru). Working together, the founding families were better able to negotiate for credit, get better prices on supplies, and share lessons on new cultivars – like cocoa.

Ilson’s family pioneered cacao farming in São Felix. Ilson remembers that his dad spent three years trying to get the loan he needed to start, and only succeeded in getting a loan because he kept a few head of cattle on the farm – the only activity the bank considered a source of funding to pay off the debt.

“Even the other farmers would tell my dad, ’you’re crazy, you think I’m going to give up cattle to plant cacao trees?’”

But the venture prospered and remains the family’s main source of income. Other farmers began to grow cacao, once it proved to be profitable, establishing itself as a more sustainable alternative to ranching.

Profitability is also what brought Cappru to focus on cacao expansion as a priority – and when he is not working on his own farm, Ilson spends his time explaining the advantages of cacao production to other farmers.

As if they were thin soldiers finding out how to compete with well-equipped giants – the plot of the biblical story of David and Goliath – the small farmers of São Félix do Xingu found out that the right economic strategy could help them survive, in a place where scale is a powerful advantage.