ADEL – Agência de Desenvolvimento Econômico Local

Néctar do Sertão

Encouraging community development and environmental  conservation through sustainable honey farming

Since 2009, ADEL has developed strategies to provide economic opportunities and social inclusion for more than 400 youths who live in the rural areas of the Rio Curu in Ceará. By promoting conditions for a productive and dignified future for rural youth, adeL prevents youth flight in search of new opportunities in large cities.

The Néctar do Sertão project will help develop the network of honeycombs with bees native to the region, by encouraging and assisting 30 youths to start honey farming businesses. The purpose is to promote the involvement of the small lot producers in the more advanced stages of the honey making enterprise, aside from incentivizing more lucrative activities.

IMPACT

With support from BrazilFoundation, the organization will:

• Develop action plans for each business;
• Support 30 rural youths to become honey farmers;
• Hold workshops on social action, honey farming and commercialization techniques, along with farming and principles of cooperative markets;
• Implement rotating funds;
• Create and maintain a regional network of honey farmers, encouraging the formation of a cooperative or association with a long term vision.

“ADEL has always valued and believed in young people as essential for changing the reality in the semi-arid.” – Wagner Gomes, administrator at ADEL