05/19/2026

Pollinator protection incorporated into national agricultural policy in Brazil

Several bees sit at the entrance of a round brown nest hole in a wooden surface — Bee colony.

The IKI Poli-LAC project supported the Brazilian government in incorporating criteria for the protection of pollinators into a public tender. The aim of this tender is to promote home gardens for women.

The Brazilian government has sent a clear message: Protecting pollinators and conserving biodiversity can be part of social inclusion and rural development policies. The Brazilian Ministry of Agrarian Development and Family Agriculture (MDA) therefore incorporated the protection of pollinators and the conservation of biodiversity into a new tender.

The incorporation of pollinator protection in the national Brazilian agricultural policy is a milestone of the Poli-LAC project, which is supported by the International Climate Protection Initiative (IKI). Through continuous political dialogue and technical engagement with the MDA, it contributed to the design of the tender. This includes the explicit promotion of agroecology and biodiversity, the improvement of ecological management practices according to local climate, soil and biome conditions, and the adoption of sustainable practices that contribute to the creation of pollinator-friendly environments.

Launched by the Subsecretariat for Rural Women (SMR) under the MDA, the call allocates R$50 million and foresees the selection of up to 15 projects across Brazil. Each selected initiative is expected to establish at least 100 productive backyards per state. The funding covers inputs, equipment, water-access technologies, and technical assistance for women beneficiaries.

The target groups include:

women farmers,
women beneficiaries of agrarian reform and land credit programmes,
women from indigenous, quilombola, and other traditional communities,
women from urban and peri-urban areas and young rural women aged 15 to 29.

How will the work continue?

The next step will be to support the visibility and monitoring of this tender, ensuring that the selected projects effectively incorporate agroecological practices, biodiversity conservation, and pollinator-friendly measures into productive backyard systems. This will be important not only for demonstrating impact on the ground, but also for strengthening the case for the long-term inclusion of pollinator protection in future public policies.

By anchoring criteria for the protection of pollinators in political instruments, the work of Poli-LAC extends beyond the specific tender. By providing recommendations for a national financing mechanism, the project has helped create conditions for the protection of biodiversity and pollinators to remain part of future investments in family farming and the social inclusion of women even after the project ends.

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