Benefits and challenges of the production and consumption of native and traditional foods in an agroextractivist community in Brazil

Abstract

The aim of this work was to understand the perceptions of people belonging to an extractive community in Pará about the benefits and difficulties in maintaining their productive and consumption practices of native/traditional foods, and with that to identify and problematize the elements referring to the current diet and its relationship to sustainability with regard to the environment, cultural, health and economic issues. Seventeen people were interviewed among farmers, extractivists and artisanal fishers who belong to the Lago Grande Agroextractive Settlement Project, Santarém PA. The interviews were analyzed based on content analysis. The challenges found at Lago Grande include environmental, economic and nutritional concerns due to the seasonality of products, price fluctuations and increased consumption of processed foods. The major benefits are nutritional, given the diversity of foods and their nutrients; sociocultural, as they strengthen both relationships between consumers and agroextractivists and strategies such as mutual help; economic, due to increased income from sales in short circuits; and environmental, by maintaining forms of production related to the preservation of nature. It is noteworthy that this type of food system should be valued and strengthened.