In Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil's southernmost state, one of the country's biggest eco-experiments has been going from strength to strength since the late 1980s. And for the last decade André Luiz Rodrigues Gonçalves of Leadership for Environment and Development (LEAD) Brazil has helped to coordinate it. The Ecological Farmers' Associations are made up of over 300 smallholders practising organic agriculture and cooperative marketing. It's a venture that's both green and profitable, producing some 100 tons of eco-products a month - and a good quality of life for the people involved.

LEAD is an international network of professionals committed to sustainable development. Its 1200 members from nearly 70 countries are drawn from business, media, public sectors, academia and non-government organizations. The LEAD network was set up in 1991 by The Rockefeller Foundation. LEAD's aim is to create and sustain a global network of emerging and working leaders ready and willing to address environment and development challenges in different countries.

The 1980s were a period of enormous change in Rio Grande do Sul. A state law on agrotoxins introduced at that time led to the establishment of the Ecological Centre Ipê in 1985, in the highlands and Torres region in the northern littoral.

Its aims centred on promoting ecological, economic and social development and were based on certain principles - among them sustainable management of both agriculture and ecosystems, and the importance of collaboration between farmers and their markets.

The centre gradually took on an advisory role to farmers and other producers, non-governmental organizations, public institutions and cooperatives. Over time it also began to publish technical publications and teaching materials on the production, processing and marketing of eco-products.

Some five years later, at the end of the 1980s, the centre's work began to bear fruit. Inspired by its on-site teaching in ecologically sustainable farming practice, as well as techniques and strategies for marketing organic produce, a number of smallholders formed the Ecological Farmers' Associations. Today these 20 associations are the nucleus that sustains the centre’s work. And the hundreds of family farmers have remained true to the centre's principles of cooperation, ecological sustainability and solidarity in marketing.

The benefits are legion. Many of the smallholders are better off financially as well as in less tangible ways, the farmlands have not been depleted or polluted, and the market for organic produce has grown.

The Ecological Centre Ipê advises on the marketing of green products through several initiatives and partners such as street markets, supermarkets, public schools and farmers' cooperatives. Its advisory work extends yet further - to the design of public policies in Rio Grande do Sul in order to promote eco-agriculture.

In the year 2000 alone Ipê notched up over 100 courses and talks on sustainable agriculture, reaching more than 3000 people. And it has held consultancies in no fewer than 16 countries - Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, Chile, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Spain, Sweden, the Netherlands, England, India, the Philippines and Kenya.

Gonçalves's part in this success proved key. He came on the scene in the early years of the association, and is still there, having built up a remarkable body of work. As one of the advisors in the field, he is in direct contact with the 300 families of the associations - and brings his resulting expertise in best practice to city, state and federal government.

Green, profitable, cooperative: the achievements of Gonçalves, the centre, and hundreds of smallholders show that it can be done.