Análise espacial da produção de plantas medicinais prioritárias no estado do Amazonas

Abstract

The state of Amazonas, the largest in the country and which holds 60% of the total Amazon rainforest, would be expected to be an important producer of inputs and products for the value chain networks of the medicinal plants and phytotherapics market. However, there are no records that there is an organized scale production of inputs that meets the requirements and demands of this health market. This geographic visualization study seeks to contribute to the understanding of the primary sector of the phytotherapic production chains, through the characterization of the management systems of the prioritized species, the mapping of producers and the occurrence of these cultivated or collected species and seeking to identify the commercialization networks of medicinal and phytotherapic plants in the state of Amazonas. For the analysis of geographic distribution, information from scientific collections connected to the Flora e Fungos do Brasil system was used. For the spatial analysis of secondary data on production obtained from the National Register of Organic Producers (CNPO) and from the 2017 Agricultural Census, the methods of multivariate exploratory data analysis were used, by combining the techniques of Distended Correspondence Analysis, Exploratory Analysis of Spatial Data (AEDE), Spatial Analysis Hotspot of Organic Production and Network Analysis. For the agronomic characterization of the species, the following criteria were considered: ways of obtaining; management scale; Good habits; volume produced and the organization of the value chain; silvicultural characteristics and the degree of domestication of the species. Cluster analysis allowed identifying the degree of similarity between species. Of the 36 priority species analyzed, 28 have their occurrences geographically confirmed in a large part of the Brazilian territory in more than 10 states or do not have the conditions and environmental characteristics for their occurrence in the state of Amazonas. However, 8 species occur or have characteristics and favorable conditions for their occurrence in Amazonas and even in less than 10 Brazilian states. It was concluded that the geographic distribution of the species and their collection or cultivation areas is random. Even though important records of production chains destined for the herbal medicine market have not been obtained, 16 municipalities stand out for the number of producers or production volume with potential for the herbal medicine market. Although many prioritized species are collected or cultivated for their multifunctionality, due to the absence of commercialization policies in the herbal medicine sector, these productions are directed to other segments of the plant products market, notably the food, food supplements and cosmetics industries.The market for these medicinal plants is established on a small scale, in short local chains, in a diffuse and poorly organized way in the State, with rare exceptions with the case study presented by the “Farmácia Verde de Manicoré”.