DIFICULDADES ECON MICAS E ECOLóGICAS DE PROGRAMAS DE FOMENTO FLORESTAL E A IMPORT NCIA DE COOPERATIVAS / Economic and Ecological Difficulties of Out-grower Schemes and the Importance of Cooperatives

The use of planted forests has been proposed in the last years in ways that contributes todevelopment and conservation of the environment. This article discusses the theme of OutgrowSchemes, a type of partnership that has been developing between private forest companiesand small and medium farmers and/or communities in different parts of the world. A termcommonly used in Portuguese to refer to such schemes is “Fomento Florestal”. This article isbased on research conducted on programs of “fomento florestal” of five forest companies inBrazil, located in the states of Bahia, Espírito Santo, Minas Gerais, Paraná and Santa Catarina.The study that provides the data for the analysis in this text is part of a wider research programof the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization) of the United Nations on “Outgrow schemes”in the world. One of the findings of the study refers to the constitution of cooperatives by theparticipant tree growers. This article presents the opinions of the company staff interviewedwith relation to the main economic and ecological difficulties confronted by such programs,and their opinions and of some of the tree growers about the factors that hinder and thatfacilitate the obtaining of the expected economic benefits and on the constitution of cooperativesby the participants tree growers.