According to the respondents consulted in this study, the social projects related to PNPB’s palm oil production are considered pilot studies. To date, these have been implemented by a single company. The Agropalma Group operates in agribusi­ness since 1982 and is the largest and most modern agro-industrial palm produc­tion and palm oil processing complex in the country. In order to assess the family farmers’ insertion difficulties, a description of the social organization of palm, the Agropalma unit in the municipality of Tailandia in the interior of Para was visited. This unit is located 343 km from Belem (Fig. 1).

Overall, a total of 185 families have been integrated into the company, all with an average area of 10 ha according to PNPB’s organization models with partner­ship contracts. In the projects presented by Brito (2010), 10-ha lots (indicated by the shaded area in Fig. 2) were distributed to the first 150 families. This enabled to better organize and concentrate the palm oil plantation. These families (former “squatters”) were relocated in the region and received government lots of up to 50 ha for other crops. However, in the plantations within the INCRA settlements, the palm oil plantation is more dispersed, conducted within the boundaries of the property previously distributed by the institute, which occupies somewhat smaller areas (about 6 ha) than the pioneering projects.

According to the representatives, the company provides technical assistance (at a symbolic price), seedlings, and fertilizers (at market prices, i. e., negotiated with other inputs purchased for of the company’s scale operation) to the family farmers. The values are repassed to the farmer and payment remittance is made in 25 years, term agreement of the clusters provided by the farmers to the processing industry. To encourage the fam­ily farmer’s commitment to the production system, the company created a program to pay for the quality of the cluster. In addition, the company pays a surcharge, which can be up to 8 %, according to the quality observed upon delivery of the raw material.

The bank gives a loan related to implement the crop by the farmer and the loan related to the monthly sum paid to the farmer family during the crop formation period. The 3-year period is considered critical to the sum paid to the farmer fam­ily success of the venture

After the first year of production, which is the third year after the crops are planted, 25 % of the cluster production sales are retained, which is destined to repay the debts to the company. Afterward, it deposits the remaining amount into the farm­er’s bank account. The bank, in turn, also retains 25 % to pay for the debt it acquired. In all, 50 % of the family’s income is retained, and these gains vary according to the growth stage of the crop, which is estimated to be of around US$67,300 (Fig. 3).

As for palm oil, there is a high risk involved for a loan around US$3,000,000 to plant 10 ha of oil palm (fostered family farming model area until the present time). By retaining the loan payment by the bank itself, the system imposes the debt repayment. As the company is a type of guarantor, when it invests its own recourses in the arrange­ment, it is then considered a partner in the business, which at this stage is advantageous to the farmer given the difficulties involved in this high investment process.

To encourage the family farmers’ involvement in the production system, the company set up a payment program according to the quality of the fruit bunch. Bonus payment is only done if the production and management controls of the land are up to date with the guidance provided by the technicians.

In general, the consensus is that oil palm has provided a significant income increase to the family farmers involved in the program. Before the project, farm­ers practically lived on the income from cassava flour, which was used as currency to purchase other foods (salt, sugar, and so forth) brought in small vessels and sold by middlemen. According to the farmers interviewed, back then the monthly income varied from US$2,250 to 4,500.

With regard to oil palm, the representatives of the only company that actually has effective arrangements with palm growers claim that they are not favored with the tax benefits of the seal, due to the fact that the projects signed are considered pilot projects and also because of the small volume of biodiesel produced. Thus, for this company, this new venture is still considered peripheral and in the testing phase. However, it is likely that biodiesel companies entering this sector may also face several difficulties, given that in practice, there is a higher cost to implement projects with family farmers in deprived areas with difficult access, especially in regions lacking cooperative and large-scale production tradition—which is the case in the main regions that cultivate oil palm. This survey is deeply exposed at Cesar and Batalha (2013).