Solidaridad Brasil is an organization from civil society that has been working in the development of production chains in dozens of countries for 50 years. Their work with yerba mate was presented on 11/19, during the 3rd Panel of the on-line event "Yerba-Mate XXI: innovation and technologies for the yerba mate sector". According to lecturer Gabriel Dedine, Solidaridad has been operating in Brazil for 11 years, working with cocoa, coffee, sugarcane, cotton, soybeans, livestock, orange, and, since 2019, with yerba mate. The project is called "Erva-mate Brasil – Fortalecendo Boas práticas na cadeia produtiva da erva-mate" (Yerba-mate Brazil - Strengthening good practices in yerba mate production chains), and it is financed by Coca-Cola and Leão Alimentos e Bebidas. Dedini explained that the reason for the involvement of a big brand like Coca-Cola with the farmers in the field is to build the chain and mitigate business risks: "It [Coca-Cola] often has relationships with family yerba mate farmers, besides that, it is a family succession that in the end will sustain a big brand in the market. Thus, the work of the farmer is essentially important to sustain and mitigate any business risks of a big brand in the private sector", he explains. The Erva-mate Brasil project, which is also a partnership with Embrapa Forestry, is composed of three pillars: human and labor rights, environment, and good agricultural and management practices. According to Gabriel Dedini, the goal is to strengthen sustainable and responsible production of yerba mate in the three states in the South of Brazil through the improvement of technical and socio-environmental performance. The first step of the work was to make a diagnosis, with risks and opportunities. "We wanted to develop an activity that makes sense to the farmer, with a sensitive look at the points that Coca-Cola and Leão bring as ethical and market principles", he says. The diagnosis explored micro-regions of production in the three states, generating a detailed material, in different aspects of analysis. Based on this structure, Solidaridad organization started to develop a content of digital solutions. For yerba mate farmers, the Farm Solution application was created. It promotes a self-assessment upon indicators that were predefined with the partners. The application stimulates the farmer to slowly increase their performance, according to a scale. However, Solidaridad faced the problem that not every farmer had Internet access, or a smartphone. From that, the second strategy was bringing Extension Solution, another similar app, but it is aimed for joint use by extension workers and farmers, with the aim to promote self-assessment. According to Dedini, to help the work, a sectoral articulation was carried out seeking bigger insertion in the field, as well as better quality of the service offered. To this end, a cooperation agreement was developed involving Embrapa Forestry, Emater-RS/Ascar, IDR, Ibramate, Atlantic Forest Biosphere Reserve, in a partnership with Coca-Cola and Leão. Another activity consisted in awareness and engagement activities, in which the group could show the operation proposal, in association with big names of the sector. "This favored the insertion of Solidaridad in the yerba mate world a lot, and from that moment on, we were able to involve 150 farmer families, and also managed to carry out activities with strength and commitment", he states. With the lock-down imposed by the new coronavirus in 2020, Solidaridad adapted the work towards engagement through digitalization, with on-line events such as live-streams, and greater use of communication via WhatsApp for a farmers' network. In addition to making customized materials available, like Erva 20 and a fieldbook, another activity carried out was in the sense of arousing farmers' critical sense by sending information bites, seeking to keep the audience connected and engaged with the work. For 2021, Dedini predicts a joint construction with partners. "We want to build and consolidate a new work strategy, with a hybrid vision, seeking to gather everything that we have done, in a practical context in loco, without wasting all the expertise accumulated throughout the months of the pandemic, with this remote work proposal", he says. Watch this lecture and the others that composed the 3rd panel of the event at Embrapa's Youtube channel. The event was organized by Embrapa Forestry with the support from IDR Paraná, Paraná State Agriculture and Supplies Bureau, and the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Food Supply.