Minas Gerais Agency | Emater promotes Family Farming Fair at ALMG this Thursday (4/4)

About to complete one year of activity, the Family Agriculture Fair, promoted monthly by the Technical Assistance and Rural Extension Company of Minas Gerais (Emater-MG) at the Legislative Assembly of Minas Gerais (ALMG), in Belo Horizonte, is consolidated as an important direct sales space from rural producers to consumers.

In May 2023, Emater-MG and ALMG signed a partnership agreement that made the fair’s monthly schedule official. Under the agreement, the Family Farming Fair is held on the first Thursday of each month, from 9am to 5pm, at Espaço Demático José Aparecido de Oliveira, with free access for the public.

Since the monthly program began, more than 50 family farmers have participated in the fair.

The product offering is varied: cheeses, coffees, sweets, biscuits, handicrafts, vegetables, fruits, fish, crafts, jams, cachaça, among others.

According to Emater-MG, at each edition of the fair, business generates between R$30,000 and R$50,000, depending on the time of year.

Producers

Producer João Vitor Dias has participated in the fair since the beginning. He produces coffee in the agroforestry system, without the use of pesticides. Coffee plants are grown alongside fruit trees: mango, banana, avocado, papaya, soursop, genipap, jabuticaba, as well as some native species.

At the fair, he sells a wide variety of products. It has coffee beans and ground coffee, fruits, truffles with coffee cream, banana raisins. Everything comes from the property he owns in São Gonçalo do Rio Baixo, Central region of Minas Gerais.

“I have a very positive evaluation of the fair. Marketing is good. Always attended by many people who work at ALMG and also the public who pass by the place. For the consumer, it is a good opportunity to purchase quality products,” he says.

The fair coordinator, Wagner Fanni, explains that all producers who participate in sales at ALMG receive assistance from Emater-MG.

The company already has a list of approximately one hundred farmers interested in taking part in the fair.

“We take farmers from different parts of the state to the fair, with different products, all of them registered, to provide security for those who consume, knowing that it is a product of the highest quality”, says the coordinator of Emater-MG.

According to him, 25 stalls are placed at each fair.

To serve all those interested in exhibiting products, Emater-MG promotes rotation among stallholders.

To participate in the fair, the producer must contact the Emater-MG office in the municipality where he produces and fill out a registration form for analysis by the fair managers.

In this Thursday’s edition (44) there will be sales of cheeses, jabuticaba derivatives, tilapia, biscuits, dulce de leche, coffee, cassava flour, handicrafts, cachaça, eggs, vegetables, greengrocers, seedlings of medicinal and aromatic herbs, and other products.

One of the new features will be the sale of artisanal charcuterie products from the municipality of Formiga.