While the gold producing town of Paracatu in Brazil also serves as the hub of an agricultural region, with modern farms and a high output of grains, in its midst is a community of about 700 people who still survive on rudimentary, subsistence agriculture.

Located close to the tailings dam of the Morro do Ouro gold mine (Rio Tinto 51 per cent) in the area known as Povoado de Santa Rita, the farm allotments are small and the mechanisation rate is low. During several meetings and consultations with the community, Rio Tinto Brasil's operating company recognised the capacity of residents to organise themselves and work in teams.

Rio Tinto Brasil established the Generation Project, a programme to support job and income generation in Paracatu, providing incentives to small and medium entrepreneurs as a way of supporting the needs of the local communities. As part of the Generation Project, the company is participating and investing, together with the community, in a programme to ensure a better income for needy families, and lower unemployment in the region. The Santa Rita community had a natural agricultural talent, but did not have enough equipment nor technical guidance to overcome the barrier of subsistence agriculture.

The Generation Project is supporting the production of vegetables in the Santa Rita community initially involving 25 families for 24 months. Rio Tinto Brasil is providing appropriate equipment (tractor, plough etc), an irrigation system, seeds, fertilisers and hiring engineering and agricultural technicians. Total cost is estimated to be around US$30,000. The community is providing the land and labour.

Vegetable production will be made available to 75,000 potential consumers in Paracatu only two kilometres away, resulting in negligible freight cost. The catering service at the mine is buying vegetables directly from the producers, thus giving incentive to the project and becoming an example to other companies in the region.

The target for the first year (2003/2004) is the production of about 10 tonnes of vegetables, to generate an income of about US$10,000. In the second year (2004/2005), with the addition of 25 community vegetable gardens and the introduction of technical support, it is intended to produce about 200 tonnes of vegetables to generate about US$200,000 in the community.