Meeting Members:
GCP exchanges with Silas Brasileiro, Executive President of CNC, the National Coffee Council Brazil on 40 years of work towards more competitive, sustainable and integrated coffee production.
Brazil’s National Coffee Council (CNC) was founded to work towards a more competitive, sustainable and integrated coffee production. For four decades, the entity has been the main private forum for discussion of coffee policy in Brazil, gathering the most important cooperatives and associations of coffee growers from different producing areas.
CNC actively represents the national coffee productive sector, being its official interlocutor, promoting Brazil’s sustainable coffee production nationally and internationally.
According to Silas Brasileiro, Executive President of the council, CNC’s proximity to cooperatives, and therefore with growers, “brings us to the real needs in the field, which provides us guidance to understand and fight for the interests of the coffee producers when aligning with governments, and other segments of the value chain.” An example is the consistent availability and release of resources to the sector, ensuring that they effectively reach growers.
Over the past 40 years, CNC has made history and has been gaining more space. In a virtual celebration, on July 8, CNC gathered several authorities, leaders of the agricultural sector, relevant technicians and coffee growers, and recalled the entity’s entire trajectory, challenges and achievements so far.
The council is committed to strengthening the coffee industry and guaranteeing a prosperous income for growers; the entity has recently established committees (Sustainability, Research & Technologies, Statistics and Communication) to debate strategic solutions for the Brazilian coffee sector. CNC, together with these technical committees, develops projects such as: carbon neutral coffee growing, adequate glyphosate management, good storage practices, and also the development of a unified methodology for crop estimate, mapping of coffee crops and production costs, which are run with the National Agency in charge of Supply (CONAB). All projects are validated by member cooperatives in the different coffee producing areas.
“CNC works for the well-being of workers and growers, pursuing the leadership of a sustainable and competitive coffee production, which matches GCP’s principles.”
– Silas Brasileiro, Executive President of CNC
Images: (Left) CNC celebrates its 40th anniversary through a large virtual event, gathering important leaders of the agricultural sector, from the public and private sectors. (Right) Silas Brasiliero talks with the Brazilian Minister of Agriculture, Mrs. Tereza Cristina (Correa Dias), who is an agronomical engineer herself and has worked in agribusiness for several years before getting engaged with the political scene. She has been in the position since January of 2019.
This contribution forms part of a new series called Meeting Members.