Abstract
The Babassu palm is a very important forest resource for over 300 000 families in Maranhao State, Northeastern Brazil. The rudimentary nature of the babassu kernel extraction process employed by the peasantry has been blamed for being one of the key factors of the crisis in the babassu oil industry economy. This paper provides the results of the use of a new model for sustainable exploitation of babassu palm forests and integral fruit processing at the village and farm- level. The new model includes the coordination of fruit collection and storage, and the gradual replacement of the traditional system of manual breaking by mechanized integral processing at local level. The machinery consists of a dehusking machine (to separate epicarp and mesocarp), a breaking machine (to crack the dehusked fruits), and a machine to separate the small pieces of broken endocarpfrom the kernels. The preliminary results arising from the application of the new model are shown and discussed.
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