When Carlos Magno de Medeiros Morais states that “The Sertão resists in the face of climate change,” he is not speaking of an academic abstraction. He is speaking of a concrete territory, a lived experience, and a productive agricultural model that has endured for generations in the Brazilian Semi-Arid region.
With a Master’s degree in Agroecology and coordination of the Sabiá Center, he built his career in the backlands of Paraíba. His advocacy for family farming stems from this experience and gains strength in the face of the climate emergency.
The Brazilian Semi-Arid region is the most populated in the world. Approximately 30 million people live in a territory where rainfall is concentrated in a few months and evaporation exceeds precipitation. Added to this is the concentration of rainfall in three or four months and long periods of drought. With climate change, the situation is worsening.
Research from the National Institute for Space Research indicates that the Semi-Arid region is one of the most vulnerable territories in the country. Carlos cites the example of Jataúba, on the border between Pernambuco and Paraíba, which in just a few years has already lost 40% of its average annual rainfall. Furthermore, rainfall irregularity has increased: the annual volume can drop in just a few days, making planting impossible.
It is in this context that family farming reveals its centrality.
Where is the food from Brazil?
Almost half of Brazilian family farming is concentrated in the Northeast, and a large part of it is located in the Semi-Arid region. It is predominantly rainfed agriculture, dependent on rainfall patterns.
Without large irrigation systems, farmers plant at the right time, integrate cultivated land and native vegetation, diversify crops, and ensure food security even in adverse conditions. This model, based on diversity and adaptation to the territory, is what Carlos considers capable of sustaining the region’s food security.
According to him, while agribusiness operates with monocultures vulnerable to extreme weather events and dependent on external inputs, family farming works with more resilient systems, connected to the soil, biodiversity, and knowledge accumulated over generations.
The defense of family farming is linked to a concept built over three decades by social movements in the Northeast of Brazil: living with the semi-arid environment.
“If we’ve always lived here, why should we leave? Why do we have to fight the drought?” Instead of treating the climate as an enemy, the proposal is to adapt to it, valuing traditional knowledge and incorporating science. Rainwater harvesting, agroecological management, preservation of the Caatinga biome, and productive diversification are strategies that increase the resilience of farming families.
“It is essential that Brazilian universities focus on trying to solve these problems as well. Scientific knowledge helps us understand reality and act in the best way. However, this cannot be done without also looking at the accumulated knowledge of the population,” he said.
According to the researcher, the answer to the climate and food crisis will not come from isolated solutions or those imposed from above. It arises from the combination of science, ancestral knowledge, and the strengthening of family farming—an equation that, in his view, is simple and urgent: it is from this alliance that the guarantee of food on the plate in times of climate instability can emerge.
The reality is that the climate crisis is already impacting food production worldwide. Floods in the South and Southeast, prolonged droughts in the Northeast, record-breaking heat waves. The industrial food system is showing its weaknesses.
From the Paraíba backlands, Carlos Magno argues that the answer will not come from miraculous or exclusively technological solutions. It will come from strengthening those who already produce food in a way adapted to the territory.
The statement may sound bold, but in the Semi-Arid region it is commonplace. Where rainfall decreases and the land demands care, those who continue producing food are not the concentrated model, but the farming families. Perhaps the future of world food lies less in commodities and more in these territories that have learned, for centuries, to live with recurring crises.
Source: brasil247.com