Brazil's bittersweet sugarcane
Friday, 7 September 2007
Mario Osava
The sugarcane workers in this small Brazilian town ate at least 200 of the little roasted wild birds. But they had not hunted them. They merely collected the roasted bodies of the birds that died in the controlled fire set in the cane field.
"For me it's the saddest thing. There are no more wild birds or animals in Maurilandia. Because there are no more forests, the few that are left take refuge in the sugarcane and die when the fields are set on fire to prepare the cane for the harvest," says Corí Alves Ferreira, recalling the macabre feast.
Sugarcane fields surround this town of 10,000 in the central Brazilian state of Goiás, which has suffered the economic, environmental and social impact of the Vale do Verdao factory, which produces sugar and cane alcohol less than one kilometre outside of town.
The Verdao river, which lies between the factory and the town, has also felt the effects of the sugarcane fields that run right up to its banks.
The smell of burnt sugarcane cane and of vinasse, a by-product of the alcohol distillation process, is stronger at certain times of the day.
The red dirt roads are now blackened, and the smoke covers the town when the fields on set on fire, a process used to clear debris and excess leaves when the harvest is done by hand.
At the age of 70, Alves Ferreira has many memories of the town he helped found when he was just a teenager, along with his brothers and many other adventurers who flocked in from all over the country to pan for diamonds in the Verdao river.
His father, who purchased land in what is today the municipality of Maurilandia, died when Corí was only nine. But he and his five brothers found wealth in the diamonds.
Around 3,000 people showed up to pan for diamonds, building a precarious settlement where fights and even killings became routine.
But the diamonds ran out and "everyone, even the monkeys," fell ill with malaria.
People fled the area en masse, until only around 300 of the original settlers remained. Alves Ferreira, who for some reason never came down with malaria, ended up building the roads that are now the wide main streets of Maurilandia.
He was also the first to have a motor vehicle -- a jeep in which he would drive the sick to the nearest town, taking a long detour to cross the river.
The settlement became a municipality in 1963, when it had grown to 2,000 people. Alves Ferreira was the first mayor, elected at the age of 26, for the 1965-1969 period.
"I cried," he confesses, because he had to leave his farm to which he had dedicated so much time and effort, and where there was so much left to be done.
He bought a house to serve as town hall, and after a terrible outbreak of malaria, he built a ferry to take people across the 50-metre-wide river and end the town's isolation.
Thanks to the young mayor's efforts, Maurilandia became one of the first towns in the region to have electricity. He also put in place a system to supply the town with drinking water.
Since re-election to a second consecutive term was not possible, he served as town councillor until he was elected again as mayor for the 1973-1977 period, when his administration built schools and health services.
He was poor by the time he left office. He did not draw a salary as mayor, and used money from his own pockets to cover the cost of works like bringing in electric power. He even had to sell his farm.
But he still had some real estate in the town, which gives him a modest living, from rental payments. A father of six, Alves Ferreira remarried after his wife died.
He says he does not like politics and has no interest in being rich, but would only like to have enough money to fulfil his dream of travelling around the country.
He also wants to revive his career as a singer, which was cut short, after the only album he recorded in 1984, by the death of his partner, who sang duets with him in the "sertaneja" country music genre. Some of the songs that he and his partner wrote are still heard on the radio in rural areas, says Alves Ferreira with pride.
He is annoyed because his successor in town hall refused to donate land for the Vale do Verdao factory. As a result, the company built its plant on the other side of the river, in the municipality of Turvelandia. "Maurilandia was stuck with the pollution and without the tax revenue," he complains.
His biggest concern is the environment, he says, because the planting of sugarcane has destroyed the forests, all the way up to the riverbanks, and the city's water supply is now polluted.
Not to mention that there are no more birds.
The people living closest to the factory also complain about the stench from the feedlots where the company raises cattle on sugarcane bagasse.
The pollution causes respiratory and skin ailments in the town. Marluce da Silva, a nurse at the local hospital, suspects that toxic agrochemicals have increased the rates of cancer of the lungs, intestines and liver.
Her colleague Vania de Souza, who works at the local Familia health post, complains about the extra burden created by the seasonal sugarcane cutters in a municipality that is chronically strapped for funds.
Thousands of people flock to the area during harvest-time, which usually runs from May to December.
In addition, many people come to Maurilandia from neighbouring municipalities for the higher quality and more affordable health care.
One such case is that of Daniel Correia, who hurt his thumb in an accident while working in a sugar mill in Porteirao, but was treated here because he is staying in the city.
Correia, a 25-year-old married father of two, comes from Maranhao, a state in Brazil's impoverished northeast -- the region that supplies Goias with most of its cane cutters.
The workers pay around 100 dollars for a three-day bus ride to this area, where they earn about 400 dollars a month.
The work is tough, and the cutters are out in the fields for at least 10 hours a day.
"It isn't much. But in the factory back home you earn a great deal less: 100 dollars a month at the most," says Francisco Lopes da Silva, whose wife and two kids are back in Maranhao, like Correia's.
In addition, the locals complain that the thousands of temporary workers who overburden Maurilandia's public health services have also led to a growth in prostitution and have driven up teen pregnancy rates.
The Familia health post is currently providing care to 110 pregnant women, most of whom are not year-round residents, according to de Souza.
Many girls in the area become mothers at the age of 14 or 15, says the nurse, although she admits that it is a nationwide problem.
De Souza, who has been in Maurilandia since May, sees the sugarcane industry as beneficial. "The factory generates employment," she says. "There is no lack of jobs for whoever wants to work, and there are no beggars or homeless people on the streets."
But Silvana Flores, a teacher who also owns a local butcher shop, says the dependence on sugarcane is bad for the local economy, which she describes as on the verge of bankruptcy.
The factories provide their workers with three meals a day, which deprives local shops of customers.
In addition, the sugar mills have built housing for the workers on their own land, and other housing is being built in municipalities in southern Goias, drawing people and business away from Maurilandia, complains Flores, who inherited the butcher shop from her husband when he was killed during a bank robbery in 2005.
The six or eight thieves "were surrounded by the police, who showed up shooting," she says. Her husband, whose leg was shot in the crossfire, was killed by the thieves when they tried to take him with them as a hostage. "The city came to a standstill for three days," she recalls.
Lisángela dos Santos, who has a shop in a poor neighbourhood in Maurilandia, concurs with Flores, saying the sugarcane industry has not been positive for the local economy.
She also points to the problem of "harvest husbands" who leave their pregnant girlfriends behind when they go back to their faraway homes.
Many local teenagers try to hook up with cane cutters with the hope of finding a stable relationship or a steady source of income, like child support, says dos Santos. "The sugarcane industry does not generate employment for women," she points out.
A 16-year-old girl who asks not to be identified by name is a case in point. The father of her nine-month-old son drives a truck for a nearby factory. Their relationship lasted two years.
She stayed in school, and says she has not suffered discrimination or taunts because of her pregnancy. Three other girls in her class are also mothers. Nor did she have problems with her mother, a divorced domestic worker.
However, her mother does say she was surprised by how early sexual activity begins among today's youngsters, pointing out that her daughter was only 12 when she had her first boyfriend, a cane cutter.
Inter Press Service
The sugarcane workers in this small Brazilian town ate at least 200 of the little roasted wild birds. But they had not hunted them. They merely collected the roasted bodies of the birds that died in the controlled fire set in the cane field.
"For me it's the saddest thing. There are no more wild birds or animals in Maurilandia. Because there are no more forests, the few that are left take refuge in the sugarcane and die when the fields are set on fire to prepare the cane for the harvest," says Corí Alves Ferreira, recalling the macabre feast.
Sugarcane fields surround this town of 10,000 in the central Brazilian state of Goiás, which has suffered the economic, environmental and social impact of the Vale do Verdao factory, which produces sugar and cane alcohol less than one kilometre outside of town.
The Verdao river, which lies between the factory and the town, has also felt the effects of the sugarcane fields that run right up to its banks.
The smell of burnt sugarcane cane and of vinasse, a by-product of the alcohol distillation process, is stronger at certain times of the day.
The red dirt roads are now blackened, and the smoke covers the town when the fields on set on fire, a process used to clear debris and excess leaves when the harvest is done by hand.
At the age of 70, Alves Ferreira has many memories of the town he helped found when he was just a teenager, along with his brothers and many other adventurers who flocked in from all over the country to pan for diamonds in the Verdao river.
His father, who purchased land in what is today the municipality of Maurilandia, died when Corí was only nine. But he and his five brothers found wealth in the diamonds.
Around 3,000 people showed up to pan for diamonds, building a precarious settlement where fights and even killings became routine.
But the diamonds ran out and "everyone, even the monkeys," fell ill with malaria.
People fled the area en masse, until only around 300 of the original settlers remained. Alves Ferreira, who for some reason never came down with malaria, ended up building the roads that are now the wide main streets of Maurilandia.
He was also the first to have a motor vehicle -- a jeep in which he would drive the sick to the nearest town, taking a long detour to cross the river.
The settlement became a municipality in 1963, when it had grown to 2,000 people. Alves Ferreira was the first mayor, elected at the age of 26, for the 1965-1969 period.
"I cried," he confesses, because he had to leave his farm to which he had dedicated so much time and effort, and where there was so much left to be done.
He bought a house to serve as town hall, and after a terrible outbreak of malaria, he built a ferry to take people across the 50-metre-wide river and end the town's isolation.
Thanks to the young mayor's efforts, Maurilandia became one of the first towns in the region to have electricity. He also put in place a system to supply the town with drinking water.
Since re-election to a second consecutive term was not possible, he served as town councillor until he was elected again as mayor for the 1973-1977 period, when his administration built schools and health services.
He was poor by the time he left office. He did not draw a salary as mayor, and used money from his own pockets to cover the cost of works like bringing in electric power. He even had to sell his farm.
But he still had some real estate in the town, which gives him a modest living, from rental payments. A father of six, Alves Ferreira remarried after his wife died.
He says he does not like politics and has no interest in being rich, but would only like to have enough money to fulfil his dream of travelling around the country.
He also wants to revive his career as a singer, which was cut short, after the only album he recorded in 1984, by the death of his partner, who sang duets with him in the "sertaneja" country music genre. Some of the songs that he and his partner wrote are still heard on the radio in rural areas, says Alves Ferreira with pride.
He is annoyed because his successor in town hall refused to donate land for the Vale do Verdao factory. As a result, the company built its plant on the other side of the river, in the municipality of Turvelandia. "Maurilandia was stuck with the pollution and without the tax revenue," he complains.
His biggest concern is the environment, he says, because the planting of sugarcane has destroyed the forests, all the way up to the riverbanks, and the city's water supply is now polluted.
Not to mention that there are no more birds.
The people living closest to the factory also complain about the stench from the feedlots where the company raises cattle on sugarcane bagasse.
The pollution causes respiratory and skin ailments in the town. Marluce da Silva, a nurse at the local hospital, suspects that toxic agrochemicals have increased the rates of cancer of the lungs, intestines and liver.
Her colleague Vania de Souza, who works at the local Familia health post, complains about the extra burden created by the seasonal sugarcane cutters in a municipality that is chronically strapped for funds.
Thousands of people flock to the area during harvest-time, which usually runs from May to December.
In addition, many people come to Maurilandia from neighbouring municipalities for the higher quality and more affordable health care.
One such case is that of Daniel Correia, who hurt his thumb in an accident while working in a sugar mill in Porteirao, but was treated here because he is staying in the city.
Correia, a 25-year-old married father of two, comes from Maranhao, a state in Brazil's impoverished northeast -- the region that supplies Goias with most of its cane cutters.
The workers pay around 100 dollars for a three-day bus ride to this area, where they earn about 400 dollars a month.
The work is tough, and the cutters are out in the fields for at least 10 hours a day.
"It isn't much. But in the factory back home you earn a great deal less: 100 dollars a month at the most," says Francisco Lopes da Silva, whose wife and two kids are back in Maranhao, like Correia's.
In addition, the locals complain that the thousands of temporary workers who overburden Maurilandia's public health services have also led to a growth in prostitution and have driven up teen pregnancy rates.
The Familia health post is currently providing care to 110 pregnant women, most of whom are not year-round residents, according to de Souza.
Many girls in the area become mothers at the age of 14 or 15, says the nurse, although she admits that it is a nationwide problem.
De Souza, who has been in Maurilandia since May, sees the sugarcane industry as beneficial. "The factory generates employment," she says. "There is no lack of jobs for whoever wants to work, and there are no beggars or homeless people on the streets."
But Silvana Flores, a teacher who also owns a local butcher shop, says the dependence on sugarcane is bad for the local economy, which she describes as on the verge of bankruptcy.
The factories provide their workers with three meals a day, which deprives local shops of customers.
In addition, the sugar mills have built housing for the workers on their own land, and other housing is being built in municipalities in southern Goias, drawing people and business away from Maurilandia, complains Flores, who inherited the butcher shop from her husband when he was killed during a bank robbery in 2005.
The six or eight thieves "were surrounded by the police, who showed up shooting," she says. Her husband, whose leg was shot in the crossfire, was killed by the thieves when they tried to take him with them as a hostage. "The city came to a standstill for three days," she recalls.
Lisángela dos Santos, who has a shop in a poor neighbourhood in Maurilandia, concurs with Flores, saying the sugarcane industry has not been positive for the local economy.
She also points to the problem of "harvest husbands" who leave their pregnant girlfriends behind when they go back to their faraway homes.
Many local teenagers try to hook up with cane cutters with the hope of finding a stable relationship or a steady source of income, like child support, says dos Santos. "The sugarcane industry does not generate employment for women," she points out.
A 16-year-old girl who asks not to be identified by name is a case in point. The father of her nine-month-old son drives a truck for a nearby factory. Their relationship lasted two years.
She stayed in school, and says she has not suffered discrimination or taunts because of her pregnancy. Three other girls in her class are also mothers. Nor did she have problems with her mother, a divorced domestic worker.
However, her mother does say she was surprised by how early sexual activity begins among today's youngsters, pointing out that her daughter was only 12 when she had her first boyfriend, a cane cutter.
Inter Press Service