The Rural Voice, 1989-07, Page 69GREY �'
County Fasrmniers by
ed
County Federation of Agriculture NEWS L.E I 1 E R The Rural Voice is ers by to all Grey
the GCFA.
446 10th St., Hanover, Ontario N4N 1P9
519-364-3050
AN AALP TRIP TO BRAZIL
Gaining a broader perspective on agriculture
As a participant in Class II of the
Advanced Agricultural Leadership Pro-
gram (AALP), I was fortunate enough to
travel to Brazil in January.
The AALP is a two-year program
sponsored in part by the OFA, the Uni-
versity of Guelph, OMAF, and the
Foundation for Rural Living. The pro-
gram consists of 10 three-day seminars,
a North American travel study, and an
international travel study.
Class II of the AALP travelled to
Brazil for their international study. We
landed in Rio and from there covered
some 5,000 km by bus for 18 days.
Brazil makes up nearly half of the
total area of South America and is the
fifth-largest country in the world. It is
divided into 23 states, 3 territories, and
the federal district of Brasilia.
The climate in Brazil varies accord-
ing to the zone and the altitude, with an
average temperature of 88 degrees Fahr-
enheit in the north and 68 degrees in the
south.
Brazil has a population of 150 mil-
lion, with as many as 50 per cent being
illiterate. Portuguese is the official lan-
guage and Catholicism the predominant
religion.
Poverty is very much in evident in
the county, and most of the farm work-
ers receive the equivalent of Si U.S. a
day. We were told that 80 per cent of the
income goes to 20 per cent of the people
and the other 80 per cent of the people
receive 20 per cent of the income.
The currency in Brazil is the
cruzado; 10,000 cruzados are equal to
about $10 Canadian. That was in Janu-
ary, but with inflation running at 30 per
cent a month the values don't stay the
same very long.
On the 16th of January the president
announced his new economic package.
Part of his announcement was the elimi-
by George Black
Executive Director, GCFA
nation of the Federal Rural Extension
Service. The full impact of this measure
was still unknown when we left, but
many of the extension people we met
with would be out of a job after the
announcement. A devaluation of the
currency took place at the same time,
which meant that a 10,000 cruzado bill
was worth 10 novo cruzados.
As for Brazilian agriculture, Brazil
is the third-largest corn producer, the
largest coffee producer, the second-
largest dry bean and soybean producer,
the largest sugar -cane producer, the
second-largest cocoa producer, and the
largest rice producer in the Western
hemisphere.
The size of an average farm in Brazil
is 450 hectares, and it is not uncommon
for a farmer to have 30 or 40 people
working for him at 51 U.S. a day. With
this kind of cheap labour, Brazilian
farmers make a good deal of money
when they sell their soybeans on the
world market.
The health and safety of the farm
workers is of little concern. For ex-
ample, the farmers avoid buying cabs
with their combines because they them-
selves don't operate them. Also, a
worker will go to the field unprotected
with a backpack sprayer. It was not an
uncommon sight to see a group of work-
ers hoeing soybeans by hand in fields
that were probably a few hundred acres
in size.
Another area in which Brazilians are
behind North Americans is that of ero-
sion control. It is just in the past few
years that erosion has been looked on as
a problem. Farmers are starting to real-
ize what is lost due to erosion and many
are now practising control by terracing.
The rolling land and continuous crop-
ping cause considerable erosion in areas
where control methods are not used.
City life in Brazil is very congested
and fast -paced, which is not all that
different from our cities. However, the
big cities are quite big (Rio has 10 mil-
lion people, Sao Paulo has 15 million)
and somewhat dirty by Canadian stan-
dards. Again poverty is very much in
evidence in the urban areas. People
could be seen sleeping in the streets and
slums were a very common sight.
We had the opportunity to visit a
slum in Sao Paulo. There were 8,000
people living in an area of about eight
acres. Although these people were liv-
ing in shacks and had raw sewage run-
ning down the street, they seemed con-
tented and happy and were thrilled that
we took the time to visit their commu-
nity.
Sao Paulo is the major industrial
centre, accounting for more than 44 per
cent of Brazil's manufacturing output.
We were told that in the city of Sao
Paulo there are more than 10,000 build-
ings that are 10 or more stories high.
The capital city, Brasilia, is a totally
planned city located in the central part of
the country. It became the capital in
1964 and now has a population of more
than a million people. Industry is not
allowed within the city limits so the
city's economy depends almost exclu-
sively on government offices and the
diplomatic community.
One of the objectives of the AALP is
to examine the position of Ontario agri-
culture in the national and international
community. A trip to such a dynamic
country as Brazil certainly allows one
the opportunity to meet this objective.
This trip has certainly provided me with
the opportunity to gain a broader per-
spective on the major issues facing soci-
ety.
Truly, it was an experience of a life-
time.0
JULY 1989 67