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The guarantee system of Ecovida Agroecology Network in Southeast Brazil is defined as a process to develop credibility through commitment and participation between farmers, technicians and consumers with the common interest in assuring the final quality of the product and the production process. This process results from a social dynamic where ecological smallholders and their organizations, agroecology consultancy organizations(NGOs) and others sympathetic to agroecology are involved. The Ecovida Agroecology Network in fact existed before its formal creation in November 1998. Many of the groups of Ecovida worked as far back as 20 years ago, developing alternatives to the disastrous effects of the Green Revolution. The current model for the Ecovida Participatory Certification took shape in relation to the introduction of the Normative Instruction (NI 07/99) of the Ministry of Agriculture in 1999. With its high certification costs, and methods inadequate to the reality of the peasant and small holder agriculture, the NI did not in a satisfactory way enhance Agroecology. Presently Ecovida encompasses 180 municipalities and approximately 2,400 families of farmers (around 12,000 persons) organized in 270 groups, associations and cooperatives. They also include 30 NGOs and 10 ecological consumers’ cooperatives as well as several professionals’ partnerships and supporting organizations. All kinds of agriculture products are cultivated and sold by the Ecovida members, for example vegetables, cereals, fruits, juice, fruit-jelly, honey, milk, eggs and meat. In 2003 the sales amount was 13 750 000 USD; 27 % of the sales was to free markets, 20 % for export, 19 % to the institutional market and 34 % for other markets like supermarkets, shops, agro industries etc.
You can access more information (in Portuguese) about the Ecovida network on http://www.ecovida.org.br/
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