Uso tradicional, manejo e processamento da piaçava da Bahia (Attalea funifera Mart.)

BAHIA PIAÇAVA (Attalea funifera MART.) TRADITIONAL USE, MANAGEMENT AND PROCESSING Piassava palm tree (Attalea funifera Mart.) is endemic of Atlantic Forest biome and it occurs in Bahia coast, Brazil. It has been used by indigenous communities even before the Portuguese arrived on Brazilian coast. This traditional knowledge was rapidly passed on to colonizers and black communities. The species is currently cultivated in large plantations and extractive activities are maintained by black population living in the region, family farmers and quilombola communities that still retain this resource in their forest fragments and in small plantations, locally named ‘piaçava forest’. Vegetable fibers are commercialized in raw form, pre-benefited, benefited, brooms and handicraft using benefited vegetable fibers. This dissertation covers techniques and technologies involving vegetable fiber management and processing, through field surveys, knowledge exchange between researchers and piaçava extractors, implementation of parcels in planting areas, vegetable fiber yield tests and preliminary information in order to take advantage of fruit pulp and seed vegetable oil. It was found 888 palm trees per hectare in producer area, approximately 65% of them are producing vegetable fibers. Quilombola plantations presented approximately 1.250 palm trees per hectare, 83% of them are producing marketable vegetable fibers. Average fiber productivity per plant during “banana tree in production” phase was 1.2kg/plant/year and during coconut tree phase was about average of 3.68kg/plant/year. After more than 12 months of first extraction the average fiber per plant in second extraction was 0.71kg/plant/year in “banana tree in production” phase and 3.14kg/plant/year in coconut trees. Pre-beneficiation phase presented 17.3% of waste, beneficiation presented an average of 26.8% of waste and approximately 15,3% of disposal of fine/media fiber during piassava brooms confection phase. Therefore throughout productive process approximately 41.8% of waste is discarded, 35.6% of fine/media vegetable fibers are used in broom confection and 17% corresponds to by-product “stripe” to cover beach kiosks and 5,3% of thick/media fiber. Considering the commercialization of piaçava benefited vegetable fibers (cut) gross margins were: 10.47% to the extractor; 7,62% to the harvester; 28.57% to the “quilombolas”; and 52% to the intermediary. Despite the difficulties of accessing the piaçava broom market, the extractors dominate the techniques and technologies involved in the management and processing of vegetable fiber, which allows that the extractive family incoming be improved with palm fiber. Current extractive income varies from R$ 360.00 to R$ 600.00 per month, supposing the scenario where the extractor dominate the whole productive process of piaçava broom confection, gross monthly income of a single extractor, working 25 days a month, eight hours a day, would be R$ 2,460.00 per month. Production costs to produce 410 brooms would be approximately R$ 795.38, then net monthly gain would be R$ 1.664.63. Those amounts prove that dominating piassava vegetable fiber production, management and exploitation by extractors adds value to final product and raises quilombolas and small extractors’ income.