It is after 1 p.m. and the sun is hard on the landscape. By the highway BR-232, where road cuts through the city of Mirandiba, in the northeastern Brazilian state of Pernambuco, a family improvises shelter with a canvas on a road sign indicating a bump. The place is strategic.

Forced to reduce their speed due to the bump, people in passing vehicles have no way of missing the sight. Thin, pale, weak, nearly fainting, adults and children show improvised posters. The small letters have the impact of a punch on the stomach: famine.

Truck drivers with plates from São Paulo, Paraná and Rio Grande do Sul, which drive past loaded with products every half hour, drop ten cents coins or one real notes (equivalent to about US$ 0.04 to US$ 0.40). The bare feet renew their spirits to face the steaming asphalt running after the saving alms.

The report is present and true. Maybe, it serves as a true picture of regional disparity in the country. More than half of Brazil's poor population is in the Northeast of the country, according to recent information from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE).

A population of 47.7 million people, with a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of US$ 104.7 billion. The Southeast region has 72.1 million inhabitants and a GDP of US$ 426.3 billion. The difference in per capita income between the regions explains the existing abysm - US$ 2,237 against US$ 6,704.

The question to be made is: does it have to be this way? A little more than 300 kilometers away from where these famished people fight for alms the answer seems quite clear. The Valley of the São Francisco River, situated in the same semi-arid region than Mirandiba, is an example of the northeastern economic potential.

Thirty years ago there was little difference between the two locations. Their economies were based on subsistence crops and depended on rain, which has always been rare and badly distributed in the region.

Today, the São Francisco Valley has an economy of close to US$ 501.1 million per year. In 2001, US$ 70 million in fruits was exported - nothing less than one third of the total of Brazilian fruit exports last year. Mirandiba, however, continues poor and starving, with a GDP of US$ 11 million.

But what happened there over these 30 years? A study by the Planning Division of the São Francisco Valley Development Company (Codevasf) replies the question.

"In the three decades, there is no social economic phenomenon registered capable of explaining the mentioned transformations except those resulting from the direct benefits and externalities of irrigated agriculture," says technical statement signed by the researcher Zacarias Lourenço Vaz Ribeiro Filho.

The statement is not for no reason. The São Francisco Valley is inserted in the heart of the Brazilian semi-arid region, between the states of Minas Gerais (in the Southeast of Brazil), Bahia, Sergipe, Alagoas and Pernambuco (all in the Northeast).

There are 640,000 square kilometers, of which irrigation potential is estimated in 1.5 million hectares. Of these, only 330,000 hectares of the perimeter are being effectively irrigated. Anyhow, it has already been enough to change the region's appearance.

Everything started with a political decision. During the debates for the 1948 Constitution, the São Francisco Valley Committee was created, with resources that were equivalent to 1% of the tax revenues of the federal government.

The aim was to eradicate poverty in one of the most miserable regions in the country in 20 years. "The organization would do everything: flood containing barriers, airports, schools, paving, health stations... it was the federal government acting in the region.

In the 1960s, studies by the Superintendence for the Development of the Northeast (Sudene) together with the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) identified the potential of irrigated agriculture.

In 1967, the committee was substituted for the São Francisco Valley Superintendence (Suvale), already directed for irrigation. In 1975, it was transformed into the Codevasf and consolidated the project," resumes the technical manager of the organization, Flávio Cabral, who accompanied up close this story in the last 25 years.

Since then, Codevasf implemented 23 irrigation projects, comprising 110,000 hectares. Channels to take water from the São Francisco River were opened and the infrastructure necessary for production was built.

Through the current model, the irrigated area is divided in plot of up to six hectares for the small producers and of 200 hectares for the businessmen. The occupation is made through public bidding. The winners have to repay the official investment in up to 22 years, paying also for the water usage.

Partnerships

One of the immediate consequences of the intervention organized by the government was that private investors were attracted to the project. These investors are currently responsible for the irrigation of another 220,000 hectares with their own or financed capital.

The result is that the São Francisco Valley has become, for example, the second greatest mango exporter in the world, losing only to Mexico.

"We are closing the 2004 figures, there were about 140 tons of mango sold to the United States, Canada and Europe. This is equivalent to US$ 45 million," comments the businessman Aristeu Chaves, one of the greatest in the region and member of the Vale Export, the São Francisco Valley Association of Producers and Exporters.

Another chief product from the Valley are grapes (yes, grapes grow in the Brazilian sertão!). The seedless kind, developed for the region through studies by the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa), is the new hit.

To have an idea, in 2001 the Vale Export accounted for 19,600 tons of grapes sold abroad (90% to Europe). The official figures for 2002 have not yet been released, but is expected to surpass by 50% over the previous period.

This article appeared originally in ANBA - www.anba.com.br.

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