Brasília, 2/13/2003 (Agência Brasil - ABr) - Speaking at the first meeting of Family Farmers, Valter Bianchini, the head of the Secretariat of Family Farming, declared that changes in government policies are going to take into consideration that fact that the country has a debt to pay to family farmers. There are 8 million of them, he said, half living below the poverty line.

He also pointed out that a total of 12 million families are involved in some type of farming and that number justifies the attention the government is giving to the sector. The problems run from credit to professional capacity. The sector includes agroindustry, handcrafts and others and is also geographically diverse. All those factors, said Bianchini, must be considered in dealing with family farming. (AB)