Governance and wild food plant value chains: a look at the Brazilian context

Abstract

As an answer to the topic, "Does local, national, and international governance have a primary role in shaping the resilience of local ecological knowledge?" we explore the context of governance and wild food plant (WFP) value chains in Brazil. We chose to focus on WFP value chains because they are often deeply embedded with local ecological knowledge. We argue that: (1) the development or abandonment of public policies can significantly boost or hinder these value chains; (2) WFP harvesters face challenges in accessing national public policies that could support and promote these value chains; and (3) Brazilian policies must consider the specific land ownership issues affecting WFP harvesting communities. Additionally, we will discuss the main challenges in promoting and strengthening WFP value chains and how governance can address these issues.

Background

Traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) is widely recognized as a complex system involving knowledge, practices, and beliefs [1, 2]. The practical dimension of TEK has been extensively studied, covering different approaches and use categories, such as wild food plants (WFPs). When performed for commercial purposes, WFP harvesting is intertwined not only with natural stocks but also with traders and consumers, forming part of a complex process that spans from the foundation to the upper levels of value chains.

Well-established value chains for WFPs can contribute to food diversification and healthier diets while increasing income for the communities that harvest these products. This can create incentives to preserve forested areas and the traditions and knowledge associated with WFPs. However, several barriers hinder the promotion of these value chains. The mere existence of a food product does not ensure its acceptance or accessibility to potential consumers. Various factors affect the acceptance and consumption of a food item, including its sensory properties (visual appearance, taste, smell, texture, etc.), cultural values, labeling, price, ease of access, emotional connections, and familiarity with the product [3,4,5,6].

In the case of wild food plants, two important factors may prevent people from trying and incorporating these species into their diets. First, among non-harvesting populations, many WFPs are unfamiliar to most people, and food neophobia (the reluctance to eat novel or unknown foods) can be a significant barrier to WFP consumption [7]. Second, in some areas, especially in the Global South, WFP consumption is often taboo. WFPs are commonly associated with poverty and/or episodes of resource scarcity [8, 9], as some of these plants were often the only available food alternatives during periods of prolonged droughts or other crises [10].

Thus, many challenges related to WFP popularization arise because, even if WFP harvesters have knowledge and access to plant resources, they may struggle to secure a stable and substantial demand for their products. Without such demand, their products may be undervalued and sold at unfair prices. For this reason, we argue that governance is essential to promoting and strengthening WFP value chains in various contexts, as it can bridge the gap between WFPs and potential consumers. We will examine the Brazilian context and discuss that: (1) the development or abandonment of public policies can significantly boost or hinder value chains; (2) WFP harvesters face challenges in accessing national public policies that could promote value chains; and (3) Brazilian policies need to consider the specific land ownership issues related to WFP harvesting communities. We will also discuss the main challenges in promoting and strengthening WFP value chains and how governance can address these issues.

The complex concept of governance

Governance is a widely used concept that has been interpreted in various ways, often with different definitions and implications [11]. While the concept was initially focused on the role of the government, it is now widely accepted that it encompasses more than just governmental institutions. It includes a whole set of institutions and relationships involved in the process of governing [11].

On general terms, the ideas and opinions discussed here consider a broad concept of governance, defined as “the institutional capacity of public organizations to provide public and other goods demanded by a country’s citizens or the representatives thereof in an effective, transparent, impartial, and accountable manner, subject to resource constraints” [11]. Therefore, we are not including the context of corporate governance in our discussions (for this subject, see, for example, [12]). While several actors and relationships could be discussed concerning WFP value chains, we will focus on public governance and the establishment of public policies.

The development of public policies can largely boost or refrain value chains

One of the main challenges that often prevent WFP harvesters and traders from selling their products is the low demand. Therefore, a priority for WFP popularization policies is that they need to be demand-inducing. We will provide examples of policies that have impacted WFP value chains in Brazil. Not all these policies are exclusive to WFP harvesting, as they often include a range of products in the context of family farming. The term "family farming" in Brazilian law generally refers to productive practices in rural areas on relatively small plots of land, where production is primarily managed and operated by families, serving as a source of income [13]. It encompasses a broad notion of agriculture, including activities such as fishing, aquaculture, silviculture, and extractivism [13]. This broader concept, included, for example, in the Política Nacional da Agricultura Familiar (National Policy for Family Farming) [13], has made it possible for WFP harvesters to access small-scale agriculture policies.

One of the most important public policies destined for family farmers in Brazil is the Programa de Aquisição de Alimentos (Food Procurement Program), known as PAA. It is an institutional Public Food Procurement (PFP) program created in 2003 [14, 15], during the 1st year of the Brazilian Workers' Party (PT) in power, with Luis Inácio Lula da Silva (Lula) as President. The program aimed to guarantee the commercialization of products from family farming while also combating food and nutritional insecurity [15,16,17]. Essentially, the program involves public purchases of products from family farming, with a waiver of bidding, so the products can be distributed to people facing food and nutritional insecurity, social assistance network entities, public food, and nutrition facilities (popular restaurants, community kitchens, and food banks), as well as to public and philanthropic health, education, and justice networks [16, 17].

The PAA is credited with being one of the main factors responsible for removing Brazil from the "hunger map" for the first time in 2014 [18, 19], and studies have shown that families that participated in the program experienced an increase in both production value and income [17]. The program reached a peak in 2012, with more than 1.3 billion Real invested and about 170,000 family farmers participating [17]. In the subsequent years, investments were cutoff, especially after the coup d'état suffered by Brazilian president Dilma Roussef, from PT, in 2016 [20]. It is currently being revitalized, with more than 1 billion Real invested in 2023, the 1st year of Lula’s third presidency mandate [19].

The PAA is one of the Brazilian policies with the greatest potential to promote biodiversity products [21] such as WFPs. Some of the WFP with higher participation in the program include Euterpe oleracea Mart., Syagrus coronata (Mart.) Becc., Attalea speciosa Mart., Mauritia flexuosa L.f., Bertholletia excelsa Bonpl., Theobroma grandiflorum (Willd. ex Spreng.) Schum., Dipteryx alata Vogel, Genipa americana L., Caryocar brasiliense Cambess., Bixa orellana L., and Spondias tuberosa Arruda [22]. Brazilian literature on social and agricultural sciences provides numerous examples of local communities that have benefited from the PAA and how it has helped them organize, promote, and expand WFP value chains [22,23,24,25]

One of these examples concerns the catadoras de mangaba (mangaba gatherers) in local communities in Sergipe, a Northeastern Brazilian state. This group of women relies on the collection of Hancornia speciosa Gomes for income generation. A study conducted between 2008 and 2011 in one of the mangaba-harvesting communities showed that participation in the PAA not only significantly contributed to income generation in the area but also helped build a collective identity, as well as local and national recognition. By the last year of the research (2011), there were 30 women officially affiliated with the program in the Pontal community, as well as 20 women who, although not officially participating in the program, benefited from it by providing their harvests to the officially affiliated women, who then sold the products on their behalf [23]. Also in 2011, the community sold 50.000 kg of mangaba within the PAA [23].

One of the issues related to the PAA and other Brazilian policies is their instability over time. Policies such as the PAA need to be stable and long-lasting to ensure that their beneficiaries can reach an organizational level and build instrumental capacities while the demand for their products is promoted beyond institutional/governmental influence. Constant interruptions in the participation of certain groups in the PAA, due to decreased funding or governmental changes, have seriously compromised processes that were being built step by step, progressively empowering WFP harvesting communities.

In the case of the catadoras de mangaba, the interruption of their participation in the PAA led to social demobilization and an increase in social inequalities [26]. The quantity of fruit sold by the harvesters became much smaller than before and, while the prices were influenced by regional markets during the PAA adhesion period, after the interruption, price oscillations were much more significant, depending on the buyer’s will, fruit quality and the profits obtained with the resales [26].

The National School Feeding Program (PNAE) is another Brazilian PFP program that greatly influenced WFP value chains. It had similar principles to PAA, but its scope is reduced to the public-school feeding context. Brazil has also other national policies that, although not specific to the WFP harvesting scenario, significantly impacted WFP value chains, by, for example, providing credit to communities [13].

The country also developed policies that are more specifically targeted to WFPs. In Brazilian legislation, several of the WFP species are recognized under the label of socio-biodiversity products, which are “goods and services (final products, raw materials, or benefits) generated from biodiversity resources, aimed at forming production chains of interest to traditional peoples and communities and family farmers, that promote the preservation and appreciation of their practices and knowledge, ensure the resulting rights, generate income, and improve their quality of life and the environment in which they live” [27]. Although the concept is broad and includes, for example, animals and non-food plants, most of the species included in policies for socio-biodiversity products are WFPs.

The Minimum Price Guarantee Policy for Socio-biodiversity Products (PGPM-Bio) is an important instrument for strengthening WFP value chains. It was created in 2009 [27] and consists on the intervention of federal government in setting fixed market prices for socio-biodiversity products and compensating those who are unable to sell their products at this minimum market value [21]. This policy aimed to deal with one main challenge in the promotion of socio-biodiversity product value chains: the low prices that consumers are sometimes willing to pay for such products.

The PGPM-Bio currently covers 17 products, 13 of them for food purposes: Euterpe oleracea Mart., Attalea speciosa Mart. ex Spreng, Dipteryx alata Vog., Mauritia flexuosa L.f., Theobroma cacao L., Bertholletia excelsa Bonpl., Euterpe edulis Mart., Acrocomia aculeata (Jacq.) Lodd. ex Mart., Hancornia speciosa Gomes, Astrocaryum murumuru Mart., Caryocar brasiliense Cambess, Attalea funifera Mart., Araucaria angustifolia (Bertol.) Kuntze, and Spondias tuberosa Arruda.

In 2018, the federal government released a list of 101 socio-biodiversity species that could be traded within the scope of the PAA.

The list was updated in 2021, including 116 products and broadening its scope not only to PAA but to other programs (PGPM-Bio, PNAE, etc.) [28]. Although the list is related to PAA and other Brazilian policies, its relevance goes far beyond these programs, given that the nutritional and cultural value of these species was institutionally recognized.

In the same year, the federal government released the National Seal of Family Farming (SENAF), whose functioning was recently updated in 2023 [29]. The instrument aims to establish labels for family farming products as a way to “strengthen the social and productive identities of various segments of family farming in the eyes of consumers and the general public” [29]. This policy provides for the attribution of seven seals—one of which is related to the socio-biodiversity products. The seal—which is valid for 2 years and can be renewed—opens market opportunities for WFP harvesters [21].

WFP harvesters face challenges in accessing national public policies that could promote the value chains

Despite the advances in public policies aimed at socio-biodiversity, access to these policies by WFP harvesters in Brazil still faces significant challenges. Programs such as the PAA and PGPM-Bio illustrate these advances. However, the evaluation of these policies' effectiveness must go beyond focusing solely on economic and productive gains. When considering the socio-environmental particularities of wild food plant value chains, bureaucratic and operational difficulties continue to present obstacles for WFP harvesters.

Bureaucratic challenges are often linked to and exacerbated by the socioeconomic and productive conditions of the WFP harvesters. Low income and education levels, lack of technical assistance, and the remoteness of urban centers and management agencies hinder harvesters' access to information about the requirements, conditions, and deadlines for accessing these policies [30]. Sometimes, seemingly simple documentary requirements prevent WFP harvesters from accessing public policies.

To facilitate and regulate the access of family farmers and, more specifically, WFP harvesters to Brazilian programs and public policies aimed at generating income and strengthening family farming, the National Family Agriculture Registry (CAF) was created [31]. The CAF's role is to identify and qualify Family Agricultural Production Units, Rural Family Enterprises, and associative forms of family farming organization. Registration can be conducted by public and private entities authorized to use the CAFWeb electronic system.

The CAF has been in operation since November 2022, replacing the Declaration of Aptitude to the National Program for Strengthening Family Farming (Pronaf) (DAP Pronaf), created in 2010 [32]. One of the main criticisms of the DAP was the gradual reduction in the validity period of the registration, which decreased from 6 years in the creation ordinance in 2010 to only 1 year in 2018 [33]. In 2019, the validity period returned to 2 years [34] due to negative repercussions [30]. When DAPs expired, renewal could take weeks or even months, causing beneficiaries to miss access deadlines, further complicating the situation for traditional communities.

With the creation of the CAF, the validity period remains 2 years, which can still be considered short, especially for more isolated communities. The renewal of CAF registration is carried out by submitting updated mandatory documentation to public and private entities accredited in the Network of Public and Private Entities for the CAF Registry (CECAF), which must update the information in the CAFWeb system.

We believe that the CAF should not become an obstacle to accessing policies, as occurred with the DAP in certain contexts. The territorial, socioeconomic, and productive peculiarities, as well as the access difficulties faced by wild food plant harvesting communities, must be considered in implementing these policies.

One consequence of the country’s operational difficulties is the exclusion of a wide range of wild food plants from the socio-biodiversity species list [35], despite their value chains' economic importance at the local level. The invisibility of these species prevents WFP harvesters from benefiting from public support policies. However, merely including a species in the official socio-biodiversity product list does not guarantee its automatic inclusion in support policies.

To access PGPM-Bio, WFP harvesters must present, in addition to the CAF (or DAP), a fiscal document for the sale (or purchase) of the products. However, most transactions in the harvesting business occur without issuing a fiscal document. While this is often related to the informality of commercial transactions of WFP products [36], the lack of a fiscal document is also due to the tax burden on non-timber forest products. Unlike agribusiness products, which are often tax-exempt, forest products are taxed [30].

The misalignment between policies and the seasonality of species also hampers institutional markets [37]. Public procurement calls are not always aligned with the production calendar and are not adequately communicated to producers and their representative organizations. The diversity of wild food plant production cycles currently included in the socio-biodiversity species list further complicates alignment, requiring continuous flow calls. The execution of these processes should include support from Technical Assistance and Rural Extension (ATER) professionals to guide WFP harvesters from the call opening to the contracting and purchasing of products.

The lack of alignment is exacerbated by delays in policy execution, which can extend beyond the productive period of the species. The analysis and resource release process needs to be expedited to ensure that WFP harvesters do not miss the harvest period.

Another significant barrier to WFP harvesters' access to institutional markets is compliance with sanitary requirements [38]. Currently applied uniformly, sanitary requirements do not consider the specificities of extractive production. Federal Law No. 11,947 of June 16, 2009, which allocates 30% of the National School Feeding Program (PNAE) resources for the direct purchase of family farming products, faces practical challenges. Bureaucracy, lack of coordination with representative producer organizations, and sanitary requirements prevent many WFP harvesters from participating in public procurement calls. Those who manage to participate often face payment delays, making their participation unsustainable.

The challenges that public policies aimed at promoting and strengthening socio-biodiversity face must be overcome for these policies to be truly effective. We believe simplifying bureaucratic processes and adapting policies to local realities is necessary, ensuring that more WFP harvesting communities can access and benefit from these policies.

Brazilian policies need to consider the specific land ownership issues associated with WFP harvesting communities

In Brazil, as in many countries from the Global South, WFP harvesting is an extremely economically insecure activity, not only because of the oscillations in production, demand, and market prices but also because several communities do not have safe and stable access to land. Many WFP harvesting communities in the country rely on either (1) public areas, (2) private areas where the owners explicitly allow entrance and collection, (3) private abandoned areas, (4) private areas where the owners “turn a blind eye” on collection, (5) private areas where owners charge for access to harvesting, or (6) private areas where the owners explicitly state their forbiddance, but people collect WFPs anyway (see, for example, [23, 39]).

Although policies such as PAA, PNAE, and PGPM-Bio benefited several communities, the valuation of WFPs is also negatively influencing the land-use permissions tacitly and informally given to the WFP harvesters. The previously discussed case of the catadoras de mangaba is an example of such dynamics. Public policies such as PAA increased the local importance of mangaba, but, at the same time, it planted insecurities in the landowners, as they got afraid that the government would proceed with land expropriation to attend a social interest [23]. Such insecurities led many landowners to explicitly forbid WFP harvesting in their areas and some even cut down the mangaba trees to avoid the harvesters’ presence In their lands [23].

Another concern is that when harvesters rely on third party lands, the eventual valuation of WFP products could attract the attention and greed of landowners who were previously uninterested in these products. This could lead to them either replacing the harvesters in the value chains or charging high fees for land access. On public lands, especially in free-access areas, harvesters may face competition from 'outsiders' who, despite not being from the area or having a background in WFP harvesting, may view the resources as opportunities for occasional income generation. For these reasons, a key aspect of developing and promoting WFP value chains is ensuring secure land access, supported by agrarian reform programs specifically focused on extractivism.

The agrarian reform in Brazil is marked by a long history of advances and setbacks, with agrarian conflicts and a political agenda that marginalized social movements that fought for land. The specific context of extractivism in agrarian reform policies was considered with the creation of extractivist settlements in 1987 [40], as a demand from traditional communities for programs adapted to the extractivist reality. These settlements were “intended for the exploitation of areas endowed with extractive resources through economically viable and ecologically sustainable activities” [40]. Currently, the context of WFP harvesters and other extractivist communities is considered with the existence of four environmentally differentiated settlements (AAD). They include projects of agroextractivist settlements (PAE), projects of sustainable development (PDS), projects of forest settlements (PAF), and extractivist reserves (RESEX) [39]. The three first classes are controlled by the National Institute for Colonization and Agrarian Reform (INCRA), and the last one is controlled by environmental agencies from federal, state, or municipal spheres [39].

While the creation of environmental differentiated settlements has provided greater security to WFP harvesters, some remain ineffective or have significant operational flaws. Additionally, they are unevenly distributed across the country, with most AADs concentrated in the Amazon region. Although this bias can be attributed to the stronger presence of extractivist communities and the numerous land conflicts in the area, a broader expansion of AADs is necessary to address different social-ecological contexts.

Moreover, agrarian reform programs as a whole and AADs specifically also face political instability. The sustainable development settlements (PDS), for example, were almost entirely (90%) created in the first two mandates of Lula’s presidency (2003–2011) [41]. WFP harvesting communities currently face several challenges when trying to concretize the creation of settlements or extractive reserves.

Land stability can also be provided by means of Indigenous and Quilombola (African descendants) territories. While in the first case, the land is owned by the Union, and its usufruct is exclusive to indigenous peoples, in the second case, the land becomes collective property of the Quilombola community, making it its rightful owner [42, 43].

In the case of Indigenous Lands, illegal activities carried out by outsiders, such as mining and illegal logging, are widespread, exacerbated by weak enforcement, a low number of staff, and insufficient infrastructure [44]. Additionally, recurring conflicts with agribusiness also pose a threat to Brazilian indigenous communities [45].

Quilombola lands also face a series of challenges, such as precarious infrastructure, lack of access to potable water, among others [46]. Both indigenous and Quilombola communities have faced difficulties in land demarcation, either due to bureaucratic delays or challenges in ensuring the effective implementation of public policies for land regularization.

Overcoming these issues has become increasingly urgent in the Brazilian context. In recent years, the destruction of native vegetation areas and the persecution of traditional peoples have intensified under far-right governments. Recent data indicate that the accumulated deforestation in the Amazon between 2016 and 2020 was 92% higher than in the 2005–2010 period and 82% higher than in the 2001–2005 period [47]. This period also saw a decrease in precipitation, an increase in temperature, and heightened anthropogenic actions in Amazonian Indigenous lands [47]. In addition to damaging the socio-biodiversity sector and exacerbating the climate crisis, the environmental insecurity scenario has driven away investors and created uncertainty in the markets.

The consolidation of settlement areas and extractive reserves could provide an effective reinforcement in mitigating deforestation and addressing the worsening climate change. Therefore, novel AADs need to be stimulated, with proper management plans that concede the right for a sustainable WFP harvest while protecting the local populations and contribute to mitigating the damage caused by climate change.

Challenges and opportunities for governance

Besides guaranteeing access to the existing public policies and addressing land ownership issues, Brazilian governance has several other challenges when it comes to promoting and strengthening WFP value chains. Demand-inducting policies such as PAA and PNAE open doors for specific groups of consumers (e.g., public-school students), but for WFPs to be effectively included in Brazilian diets, policies need to encourage an ‘organic’ interest and consumption of these products.

Public incentives for advertising on WFPs could be an interesting way to reach potential consumers. But, as for now, communication promoted or financed by public agents has mostly been used to disseminate ideas and interests that are antagonistic to those of the WFP harvesters. A good example relies on the pro-agribusiness propaganda in Brazilian social media, financed by the Parliamentary Agricultural Front (Frente Parlamentar da Agropecuária), a group of lawmakers that defend the interests of the agribusiness sector [48]. These advertisements were found to be based on disinformation and greenwashing (misleading practices that create a false impression of sustainability), and they also contributed to portraying Brazilian social movements, such as the Landless Rural Workers' Movement (MST), as criminal organizations [48], especially during the mandate of former Brazilian right-wing president Jair Bolsonaro.

Therefore, the Brazilian public sectors need to finance advertisements that indicate the nutritional, environmental, and social benefits of WFP consumption, as well as their cultural importance, gastronomical applications, and taste. They also need to help change society’s views of MST and other Brazilian social movements as criminal groups. Such movements were key to the formulation of agrarian reform policies, and they have an important role when it comes to organic food production and sustainable WFP harvesting in Brazil. The demarginalization of social movements that actively help strengthen WFP value chains should be, in our opinion, one of the most important targets of Brazilian governance strategies. As important boosters of WFP value chains, Brazilian social movements, especially those related to the right to land, need to be acknowledged and strengthened.

Policies to reach novel WFP consumers also need to consider the current barriers to WFP consumption as well as the best ways to introduce the products so they can be accepted. Our studies have shown that the gastronomic association of WFPs with conventional plants and ingredients may increase acceptance when compared with products solely made of WFPs [7]. Under some circumstances, the use of terminological cues associating WFPs with conventional plants based, for example, on sensory similarities, can improve consumer’s expectations [49].

The processing of products can enhance consumer acceptance and increase producers' income. However, most WFP harvesters sell fruits in their raw form because they lack the necessary infrastructure for processing [37]. Policies focused on developing infrastructure and training WFP harvesters in product processing are essential.

Many WFP harvesting communities are located far from urban centers, and the transportation of products represents another significant obstacle [30]. Typically, intermediaries facilitate the transportation and commercialization of the production. Although they play a necessary role in many contexts, intermediaries reduce the profit margins of WFP harvesters and increase prices for consumers. The additional production costs due to transportation by intermediaries burden the overall production costs and diminish the competitiveness of wild food plants compared to conventional products, which reach the market with more attractive prices for consumers. These examples show that successful policies need to consider the barriers to WFP popularization from the bottom (harvesters) to the top (consumers) of the value chains.

Another challenge to the promotion and strengthening of WFP value chains is the temporal instability of production, a problem that is becoming more pronounced with climate change and the increase in extreme weather events. Many harvesting communities experience production losses during climatically atypical years. Such instability can lead to significant income fluctuations and social insecurity within these communities. Therefore, governance strategies and public policies must increasingly incorporate climate change issues into their agendas. Such instability has not been properly targeted by public policies in the country.

This inclusion could be done by considering the idea of climate governance, which embraces “inclusivity in designing mitigation and adaptation strategies by all climate stakeholders, including Indigenous communities affected by climate change” [50].Therefore, interventions and policies need to be built and executed together with local populations, who can provide knowledge of wild foods and wild food-producing landscapes [51] and, at the same time, closely monitor the increasing changes in WFP populations and productions. Monitoring is an important part of adaptive governance [52], another key concept to be considered in the Brazilian WFP harvesting context.

The concept of adaptive governance emerged to expand the notion of adaptive management, as the former can encompass broader social contexts and actors [53, 54]. Among the approaches encompassed by this concept, some authors suggest that adaptive governance includes not only adaptive management but also adaptive co-management and anticipatory governance [52]. Anticipatory governance must consider a wide range of possible future scenarios to develop flexible yet well-established plans [52]. For this reason, it needs to be closely linked with academic knowledge, as science can help describe and model these scenarios.

Species distribution models, for example, can indicate possible distribution outcomes for WFP species in different emission scenarios and help drive policies and interventions. Our team conducted a study in the Brazilian semiarid with the most important WFPs of the region and we found that, although most species are likely to have their climatically suitable areas reduced, some are likely to increase their ranges, and they can be strategic for popularization strategies [55]. Additionally, even though several species are projected to present a reduced range, we were able to indicate areas where they are likely to persist, as well as areas that would need higher intervention to guarantee their persistence. This kind of information may help guide WFP value chain planning, by establishing priority species/regions for either WFP popularization (species and areas with positive outcomes) or conservation (species and areas with negative outcomes).

Finally, an important challenge is how to properly include the private sector and third sector in the development of WFP supply chains. The private sector can play a strategic role in strengthening WFP value chains, particularly through partnerships in the stages of production, processing, and commercialization. These partnerships could help compensate for the lack of technological capabilities among WFP harvesters.

However, the relationships between traditional communities and private companies are often complex and sometimes exploitative. Historically, the private sector has operated under the logic of neoliberal capitalism and the concept of "nature as capital" [56]. In Brazil, partnerships between pharmaceutical companies and traditional communities have raised many questions and debates about benefit-sharing and the protection of traditional knowledge. These debates culminated in the Biodiversity Law, enacted on May 20, 2015 [57] which established regulations for access to genetic resources, the protection of traditional knowledge, and benefit-sharing.

Despite the existing laws, the private sector continues to exert substantial influence over policy decisions and directions, representing economic power and its interests. Therefore, it is essential that public policies set clear limits for the private sector, recognizing the unequal bargaining conditions; it holds compared to other groups, especially traditional communities. In this way, the private sector can act as a partner in strengthening the value chains of socio-biodiversity, with attractive conditions and guarantees for biodiversity conservation and the protection of community rights.

The third sector has been playing a significant role in fostering value chains for various products, including wild food plants (WFPs). In Brazil, NGOs and Public Benefit Organizations have been active on several fronts, such as conducting research on the sustainability of WFP use, implementing reforestation initiatives and establishing agroforests, strengthening WFP harvesters, communities, and associations, advocating for the creation of extractive reserves, contributing to the development of management plans for these reserves, and participating in consultative councils of extractive reserves.

Despite the significant contribution of the third sector to WFP supply chains, some organizations still adopt a paternalistic approach, which does not effectively empower local communities. In other cases, certain NGOs create internal divisions by, for example, competing with local cooperatives. For this reason, public policies involving NGOs should consider their role in community empowerment and consider local perspectives when allocating funds for NGO activities.

Conclusion

We summarize the ideas discussed in this text by stating that, in the Brazilian context, governance has been crucial in promoting and strengthening WFP value chains, but investment and access to public policies still have a long way to go before they can become a game changer for WFP harvesting communities. Additionally, governance strategies need to place greater emphasis on the consumer perspective by identifying the most effective ways to promote WFP products and investing in impactful advertising strategies. Finally, spatial (e.g., land ownership), temporal (e.g., climate change), and institutional (e.g., policy interruptions) instabilities must be properly addressed.