The Japan Times - In Brazil town turning to desert, farmers fight to hang on

EUR -
AED 3.82231
AFN 77.31882
ALL 99.399399
AMD 413.723452
ANG 1.866397
AOA 951.693186
ARS 1096.501174
AUD 1.656378
AWG 1.873204
AZN 1.770434
BAM 1.962076
BBD 2.090919
BDT 126.283967
BGN 1.957809
BHD 0.392141
BIF 3065.249546
BMD 1.040669
BND 1.405015
BOB 7.155891
BRL 6.013092
BSD 1.035527
BTN 90.235653
BWP 14.463475
BYN 3.389022
BYR 20397.111907
BZD 2.080184
CAD 1.48632
CDF 2965.90639
CHF 0.939396
CLF 0.026365
CLP 1011.737351
CNY 7.567718
CNH 7.571757
COP 4335.166782
CRC 524.089088
CUC 1.040669
CUP 27.577728
CVE 110.618856
CZK 25.157136
DJF 184.412572
DKK 7.459739
DOP 63.996254
DZD 140.828916
EGP 52.371145
ERN 15.610035
ETB 132.509766
FJD 2.403477
FKP 0.857081
GBP 0.831593
GEL 2.955848
GGP 0.857081
GHS 15.947013
GIP 0.857081
GMD 74.92826
GNF 8950.761423
GTQ 8.004606
GYD 216.653047
HKD 8.105397
HNL 26.381023
HRK 7.679667
HTG 135.455257
HUF 406.579187
IDR 16982.104632
ILS 3.709621
IMP 0.857081
INR 91.004368
IQD 1356.539406
IRR 43812.164012
ISK 146.817975
JEP 0.857081
JMD 163.114134
JOD 0.738254
JPY 159.223917
KES 134.402509
KGS 91.006797
KHR 4164.38138
KMF 498.324235
KPW 936.602193
KRW 1503.932547
KWD 0.321026
KYD 0.862956
KZT 538.098728
LAK 22526.383883
LBP 92735.778389
LKR 310.206785
LRD 206.079223
LSL 19.435652
LTL 3.072825
LVL 0.629491
LYD 5.106408
MAD 10.436686
MDL 19.45351
MGA 4861.621818
MKD 61.56659
MMK 3380.052236
MNT 3536.193288
MOP 8.306271
MRU 41.339837
MUR 48.588609
MVR 16.020787
MWK 1795.670015
MXN 21.446117
MYR 4.603901
MZN 66.502268
NAD 19.435278
NGN 1553.281854
NIO 38.112099
NOK 11.64916
NPR 144.380324
NZD 1.830313
OMR 0.400666
PAB 1.035512
PEN 3.837676
PGK 4.216569
PHP 60.368686
PKR 288.870927
PLN 4.209488
PYG 8154.201844
QAR 3.775377
RON 4.976896
RSD 117.098158
RUB 102.323308
RWF 1462.700085
SAR 3.90299
SBD 8.819862
SCR 15.032457
SDG 625.441996
SEK 11.361779
SGD 1.404305
SHP 0.857081
SLE 23.82971
SLL 21822.307985
SOS 591.801632
SRD 36.532739
STD 21539.746677
SVC 9.060985
SYP 13530.777995
SZL 19.429432
THB 34.983652
TJS 11.287507
TMT 3.642341
TND 3.324234
TOP 2.437354
TRY 37.411737
TTD 7.023569
TWD 34.161023
TZS 2647.231856
UAH 43.22048
UGX 3811.191543
USD 1.040669
UYU 44.672903
UZS 13447.015384
VES 61.107416
VND 26152.011338
VUV 123.55031
WST 2.914734
XAF 658.071577
XAG 0.032089
XAU 0.000363
XCD 2.81246
XDR 0.794252
XOF 658.071577
XPF 119.331742
YER 258.917913
ZAR 19.369871
ZMK 9367.263642
ZMW 29.125589
ZWL 335.094985
  • RBGPF

    0.2700

    66.27

    +0.41%

  • CMSD

    -0.0700

    23.68

    -0.3%

  • SCS

    0.2400

    11.31

    +2.12%

  • NGG

    -0.1500

    61.86

    -0.24%

  • CMSC

    -0.0100

    23.34

    -0.04%

  • BCE

    0.3700

    24.4

    +1.52%

  • BCC

    0.4300

    125.57

    +0.34%

  • JRI

    0.1800

    12.64

    +1.42%

  • RIO

    1.3500

    61.2

    +2.21%

  • RELX

    0.0100

    49.86

    +0.02%

  • GSK

    -0.0600

    34.84

    -0.17%

  • BTI

    0.4900

    40.23

    +1.22%

  • RYCEF

    0.0500

    7.4

    +0.68%

  • AZN

    -0.9000

    68.96

    -1.31%

  • BP

    0.7700

    31.64

    +2.43%

  • VOD

    -0.2900

    8.2

    -3.54%

In Brazil town turning to desert, farmers fight to hang on
In Brazil town turning to desert, farmers fight to hang on / Photo: Nelson ALMEIDA - AFP

In Brazil town turning to desert, farmers fight to hang on

Standing amid a terrain of rugged red craters that looks like something from Mars, Brazilian farmer Ubiratan Lemos Abade extends his arms, pointing to two possible futures for this land fast turning to desert.

Text size:

Abade, a 65-year-old cattle rancher, lives in Brazil's worst desertification hotspot: Gilbues, in the northeastern state of Piaui, where a parched, canyon-pocked landscape is swallowing up farms and residences, claiming an area bigger than New York City.

Experts say the phenomenon is caused by rampant erosion of the region's naturally fragile soil, exacerbated by deforestation, reckless development and probably climate change.

But several hundred determined farming families are hanging on in this desolate land, scraping by with hardscrabble ingenuity and sounding the alarm over the spreading problem.

"Things have gone haywire. It's not raining the way it used to. So we use irrigation. Without that, we wouldn't get by," says Abade.

To his right, he points to a barren field of withered grass that died before his cattle could eat it. To his left, he points to an exuberant patch of tall bluestem grass watered with a makeshift irrigation system, which he is counting on to keep his 15 cows -- and himself -- alive.

He installed the system a year ago, digging a well and jerry-rigging a network of hoses.

"Without irrigation, this whole place would look like that -- dying of thirst," he says.

"It takes technology to farm here. But when you're poor, technology is hard to come by."

- 'Fragile land' -

Seen from the sky, the "Gilbues desert" looks like a giant sheet of crumpled, brick-red sandpaper.

Its erosion problem isn't new. The name "Gilbues" likely comes from an Indigenous word meaning "fragile land," says environmental historian Dalton Macambira, of the Federal University of Piaui.

But humans have made the problem worse by razing and burning vegetation whose roots helped secure the silty soil, and by over-taxing the environment as Gilbues has grown to a town of 11,000 people, he says.

Gilbues was the scene of a diamond-mining rush in the mid-20th century, a sugarcane boom in the 1980s and is now one of the biggest soybean-producing counties in the state.

"Where there are people, there's demand for natural resources," Macambira says.

"That accelerates the problem, by demanding more of the environment than it can sustain."

Macambira published a study in January finding the area affected by desertification more than doubled from 387 square kilometers in 1976 to 805 (310 square miles) in 2019, hitting 15 counties and some 500 farming families.

Climate scientists say further studies are needed to pinpoint whether global warming is accelerating the phenomenon.

Farmers say the dry season has gotten drier, punctuated by a shorter, more-intense rainy season -- which exacerbates the problem, as heavy rains wash away more soil, deepening the gaping canyons known as "vocorocas."

Macambira says a hotter planet can only make things worse.

"Wherever you have environmental degradation, climate change tends to have a more perverse effect," he says.

- Turnaround -

The United Nations calls desertification a "silent crisis" that affects 500 million people worldwide, fueling poverty and conflicts.

But there is opportunity in the problem, says Fabriciano Corado, president of conservation group SOS Gilbues.

The 58-year-old agricultural engineer says although Gilbues's soil erodes easily, it is also a farmer's dream: rich in phosphorous and clay, it needs no fertilizer or other treatments.

Like Abade, he says farmers need technology to survive the encroaching desert -- but nothing too high-tech.

Local producers are getting extremely positive results with things like protecting native vegetation, drip irrigation, fish farming and the ancient anti-erosion technique of terrace farming, he says.

"We don't have to reinvent the wheel. The Aztecs, Incas and Mayas did it already," he says.

He condemns the closure six years ago of a government-run anti-desertification research center in Gilbues that helped local farmers implement just such techniques.

The state plans to reopen it -- but has not set a date.

The region meanwhile has huge potential as a solar energy producer, says Corado, citing the recent opening of a 2.2-million-panel solar park. Another is in the works.

Get the right mix of conservation and technology, and "there's no stopping us," he says.

K.Nakajima--JT