Minimum Wage for Brazilian Workers

The purpose of this essay is to examine how to properly support and manage the growth and harvesting of a palm plantation. The part of the tree called the palm heart, will be the focus in this paper as it needs to be sustainably removed from the tree. This tree is found in the country of Brazil in a floodplain estuary and is named the acai palm (Euterpe oleracea). “Because Acai is a multi-stemmed palm, selective harvesting of individual stems does not kill the plant, allowing the removal of palm heart year after year.” This palm heart forest also needs to be maintained while remembering the triple bottom line of sustainability and including the social, environmental, and ecological aspects that pertain to it.

The first thing that needs to be accomplished, to ensure the proper management of the acai palm forest, is to figure out how many hectares and employees would be needed to sustainably plant, operate, and harvest an acai palm heart forest. The second thing that needed to be accomplished was to ensure there was enough profit made to pay all the employees. I then started out with a figure of 20 hectares or 50 acres. I also felt that there was a need for 50 employees to ensure the operation ran successfully. When thinking about how much money would be needed to pay the wages of these employees it was found that minimum wage in Brazil is less than $5.00 an hour. This meant that I would have to pay them each $5.00 an hour to be above minimum wage. That would be $2,250 a day for 10 employees. If they work a five day a week that would be $11, 250 per week to pay all employees. Right away it was found that these figures are not going to work. One pro of this plan is that a lot of work could be done with many employees. The cons to this plan are that there might not be enough money generated from harvesting to pay that many employees. There is also a possibility that there will not be enough work for 50 people when trying to sustainably harvest trees.

I decided to backtrack and find out a little more information about how palm hearts are bought and sold. This led to the realization that paying the employees in Brazil $5.00 an hour could harm them, even though its above their price of minimum wage. This is due to the fact that palm hearts are harvested and then sold by the stem. “It takes two to four palm stems to make one pound of palm heart.” Sometimes the employees are able to make more than $5.00 an hour, so it would be an injustice to take that opportunity away from the workers. I now decided the wisest decision was to combine some of the practices that have already proven to be effective and sustainable, then mash them together to create a new one. This will be done while remembering the importance of the social, economic, and ecological aspects of the management plan.

The ultimate plan that makes the most sense for sustainable management of the palm heart forest, was seen to involve the implementation of five families who are each in charge of 20-acre plots, for a total of 100 acres. Each family will essentially be running their own business, with a constant and reliable company that is buying their product. This would be the palm heart sustainability company being managed in this essay. Each family will be involved in all aspects involved in planting, harvesting, and manufacturing the palm hearts. Each 20-acre plot will be supplied with its own floating factory where the palm can be delivered and processed daily.

There will be a lull in time while the Acai trees are growing. This is found to usually be between 4-5 years. During the time when palm hearts are waiting to be harvested the land still needs to be maintained and protected. The families would be able to live on the land for free in ten-year increments. In the fifth year the cultivation of palm hearts will begin. They families can then hire who they want which will further help people in the community, thus helping the economy. All the while the land will be checked by management twice a year to ensure sustainability standards. The management would also buy all the harvested and manufactured palm hearts and the families would start receiving cash. This would mean they would be ensured the free housing for ten years plus an agreed upon amount of money for the palm hearts after the first five years.

The Economic value shown here is that the company will be giving back to the economy by giving five families a solid job for a good length of time. This in turn ensures that the families can hire who they would like, and money would be generating in the economy for use of boats, equipment, food, and labor cost. Ecologically there would be an assurance that 100 acres of land in Brazil is going to be sustainably used and harvested for ten years. Planting would take place at same time schedule for each plot of trees and each family. The difference will come when harvesting. The time cycle will then start, this will ensure the continued growth of trees and make sure the offshoots of the palm are growing according to schedule.

Upon reading over the material of previous studies for sustainable palm forest it was found that one family could produce 35,000 hearts of acai palm per year, which would be equal to “$2,916 dollars or .83 cents a stem”. This means for 10 families producing 35,000 palm hearts it would be $ 29,160 per year. If each plant bore 10 lbs. worth of palm hearts, then it would take 6,000 trees to produce 30 tons or 60,000 pounds of palm heart. If you planted one tree for every 4 square feet, then 1,089 acai palms could be planted in one acre. Times that by 100 acres this means planting 108,900 trees in all.

When looking at other sustainability plans for running the manufacturing facility for palm hearts, it was found that the amount of revenue generated was shown to be $10,700 a month for 30 tons of palm hearts. “Production costs at that time were about $7,400 a month, with 58 percent of the costs going toward the purchase of palm heart from extractors.” “This left the average monthly net income at US $3,315.” With over half the money going into purchasing palm hearts from suppliers. Having the families producing palm hearts exclusively for the facility I manage will be a tremendous help in ensuring a constant price of palm hearts. it makes sense to get the palm heats from the families for a settled upon price that makes everyone happy. According to the calculations above, this means that every 6,000 trees equals 30 tons. The ten families will be planting 108,900 trees altogether, which is one tree every four sq. ft. The amount of revenue produced for 100 acres of palm heart harvesting would be $194,205. The minimum net income while paying 58 percent to palm heart extractors would be $60,167. In this sustainability plan being put forth the percentage paid to extractors would be less than 58 percent. The reason for this is that the extractors are already working for the company and only selling the palm hearts to that company, which would reduce the cost of buying from several different sources.

Some of the cons that could be found with this plan is that there would be a need for a small house to be set on each acre. Also, the acai palm forest would need to be in a location that was close enough to travel to a small town and back for supplies. The palm heart stems would need to be collected from the families on a regular schedule. An agreement would need to be signed so that the families who were hired and the company are on the same page without the fear of any future legal battles. The last con found, is that the size of the family who generated the 35,00 palm hearts was not given.

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