Rede Terra do Meio: an important partner for the production of Mazô Maná ingredients

Have you ever heard of Social Technology? This concept focuses on innovative development proposals, considering a collective approach that combines popular knowledge, social organization and technical-scientific knowledge.

It is a type of technology that makes perfect sense for what we are looking for at Mazô. That is why we bring partners to our network with the potential to bring these concepts to the market – in addition to being the channel for maintaining fair relations with the forest and with traditional peoples for the production of the Amazon Forest Supershake.

Mazô's partnership with the Terra do Meio Network

An example of these partners is the Rede Terra do Meio . Located in the region of the middle Xingu River (PA), including its tributaries the Iriri River, Riozinho do Anfrísio and Rio Bacajá and the Transamazônica, the Network brings together community associations of riverside extractivists, indigenous people and family farmers. It is from these communities that some of the ingredients in Mazô's products come (especially babassu and its derivatives).

In the partnership agreement we have with the Network, we cooperate to improve the processing of some products (helping to generate more value for items from the Forest) and to seek strategic partners (enabling a diversification of the associations' sources of revenue). With this, our goal is to support the communities that are part of the Terra do Meio Network to sell products from the Forest at much fairer and more valued prices.

The organization of the Network and the Vem do Xingu brand

The Network contributes to the conservation of 8 million hectares of forest in Terra do Meio, by valuing the way of life of its members and strengthening its governance spaces.

The Network's production is concentrated in 27 cantinas and 9 mini-mills spread throughout the region and are sold on the market under the Vem do Xingu brand. The cantinas and mini-mills are organizational models typical of the Amazon and, by allowing the creation of production chains and the processing of non-timber forest products, also contribute to a reorganization of the economic logic that has prevailed in the Forest until today.

Why it makes sense for Mazô to partner with Rede Terra do Meio

Practices such as those adopted by the Network deserve our full support (whether from Mazô or from people and companies that also understand the importance of the socio-environmental cause ), since they promote socio-environmental diversity, contrasting with monoculture, which is the most common form of cultivation in Brazil and largely responsible for deforestation and soil degradation, causing a huge imbalance in our entire ecosystem.

Mazô's business model seeks to generate value and well-being for the traditional populations with whom it works, through the practice of fair contracts, aiming not only at generating income, but also at new possibilities for partnerships and different paths to generating value for the forest and its populations. And with this in mind, the partnership with the Cantinas Network was one of the first we established when Mazô was created.