Boa Vista is a city located in Brazil's Legal Amazon (Amazônia Legal), a legally designated region that incorporates all nine states in the Amazon basin, representing 56% of the country's geographic territory. The territories that make up the Legal Amazon share a set of common environmental characteristics, cultural identities, and political and socio-economic issues that necessitate cross-sector development planning. One of the main economic activities in Boa Vista is intensive food production. There are local regulations in place to manage organic waste and promote household farming and agroecology, but they have not yet been effectively implemented. This has created unfavorable conditions for rural families and Indigenous and migrant communities that also work in small-scale agriculture.  

In this context, an alliance of civil society organizations called Boa Vista  Acolhedora implemented an innovative, circular economic model that intervenes in the food value chain, from production to waste recovery, with a focus on social inclusion.  

This systemic approach allows residents to manage organic household waste and plant cuttings to convert them into organic compost, which is a critical component to improve soil fertility and build an agroecological and regenerative production chain in the area. With support from the European Union, the alliance, whose members include Associação Voluntários para o Serviço Internacional (AVSI), Escola Agrícola Rainha dos Apóstolos, and Fundación Avina, developed a compost plant as a way to implement the existing organic waste management policy. The plant has the capacity to treat a thousand tons of waste per month and provides an essential public service by recovering different types of organic materials, such as plant cuttings and food waste, and transforming them into high-quality fertilizer. In addition, as part of its social inclusion strategy, the plant employs Venezuelan migrants, which boosts their economic and cultural integration.  

In the first half of 2024 alone, the plant processed over 500 tons of waste, and the fertilizer produced was distributed throughout the municipality to over 600 rural families participating in the Municipal Agribusiness Development Plan, a program created to promote household farming. The fertilizer improves the quality of the soil, enriching it with nutrients and lowering its acidity. This closes the loop by returning waste to the earth, enhancing food production via agroecological and regenerative practices and contributing to food security in the region.  

The members of Boa Vista Acolhedora, along with the municipal government and the bank Banco do Brasil, brought innovation to their community with composting technology that transforms organic waste into valuable resources and promotes sustainability.   

In addition, Fundación Avina helped build social capital and facilitate public-private sector collaboration, creating a network called Rede de Economia Circular e Agroecologia de Boa Vista (RECA-BV) to support initiatives designed to increase the circularity of the food production value chain, advocate for relevant public policies, and create an inclusive management model with citizen participation.  

Finally, a common vision and shared action agendas (concerning the circular economy and agroecology) helped transform a commitment to environmental sustainability and social responsibility into action.  

These collective efforts contributed to making Boa Vista a more resilient, inclusive, and environmentally conscious city, expanded local culture through diversity, and established a far-reaching collaborative process by bringing together farming families, migrants, and local businesses.