"If I step on it, is it going to bite me?" Asks 3-year-old little Rafael, curious. Her mother, Graziela Reinolde, 37, says no. "It's dead, leave it there," she says, looking at the dried carcass of the crab that catches her son's attention. Around him, many things also seem dead. Like the weir on the small rural farm the family rents, where the cracked earth now houses the remains of fish that have long had nowhere to swim. Or part of the orange grove on which they live, but whose dehydrated leaves are closed in an attempt to conserve the little moisture that still remains. In the rural area of Estrela D'Oeste, in the northwest of the state of São Paulo, it has not rained for months. "It is the worst drought I have seen in my more than 30 years of life in the countryside," says Patriarch Antônio Reinolde, 43,the third generation of his family dedicated to the land.
The property rented by the Reinolde family is next to the Euclides da Cunha road, which pays tribute to the journalist and writer from
Los sertones
. In his masterpiece, he praises the determination of the inhabitants of the backlands, and says that "the drought does not scare them (...) it is a complement to their tormented life." But these words do not translate the despair felt by those who depend on water to live. “I have thought many times about quitting; in fact, many people I know have left the earth. One of my cousins became a truck driver. Because we are poor and we suffer a lot with this [drought] situation. We do not know what we are going to earn or when, currently we are at zero every end of the month ”, says Antônio, who works in the small rented property with his wife Graziela and their eldest son, Daniel, 13 years old. The three watched, incredulous, as the weir dried up for the first time in decades: from the thousands of liters of water from the rain and the stream,that came to overflow and flood the dirt road, "making it difficult for us to pass", only a small puddle of mud remained.
The Reinolde family in the dry weir, with what remains of the water at the bottom.Lela Beltrão
A good part of the northwestern region of São Paulo is in a critical situation, suffering the impacts of the climatic emergency that affects the whole world in different ways. What for many is a distant image, personified in the thaw of Antarctica, is directly impacting the richest state in Brazil. The imbalance in the climate has a devastating effect on the country's hydrology, which increases electricity bills in cities (since the reservoirs of hydroelectric plants are empty, which increases the use of thermoelectric plants), causes floods in Manaus (with the concentration of a large part of the rains in a short period) and the loss of crops due to the worst drought in the last 91 years in the southeast and central west of the country.The climate crisis also accentuates atmospheric phenomena such as La Niña, which favors drought in the region.
A report published in July by the National Center for Monitoring and Alerts of Natural Disasters (Cemaden), an agency of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation, points out a situation of "extreme drought" (the second most serious category) in the northwest of the state. São Paulo, which puts more than 80% of agricultural activity at risk and family farming at “high risk”. The Cemaden document also states that "there are no expectations that the current water crisis will improve in the next three months", taking into account the dry season.
But things have not always been this way in the region that is part of the so-called São Paulo orchard, in the interior of the state.
“Until four years ago we were planting without having to water.
Only with rainwater ”, says Antônio.
According to the farmer, this year the last rains were in March.
And they were not enough to fill the weir, dry since the end of last year.
Only dead fish remained from the Açoita Cavalo stream, which also supplied the family's small lake.
An entire cornfield that the Reinolde family planted earlier this year has now disappeared, causing $ 2,300 in damage.
"Everything dried up and the ears twisted and fell to the ground," he says.
"This has never happened before."
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Drought-cracked land where there was a weir, in Fernandópolis, São Paulo.Lela Beltrão
To survive, they had to invest in an expensive water pumping and irrigation system to save part of the harvest.
Between pumps and pipes, 1,150 dollars were spent.
The electricity bill increased $ 200 and monthly expenses rose another 600 for the diesel from the pump that carries the water from the well - which cost more than $ 1,500 to drill - to the fields.
Even so, they have only managed to irrigate 70% of the lemon and orange plantation, and the difference between the part that receives water and the part that is not visible.
The leaves of the dried orange tree twist and turn dark, and the fruit is sour and of little commercial value.
The impacts of the drought in the northwest of São Paulo are not only suffered by small farmers in the region.
The Água Vermelha and Marimbondo hydroelectric plants, both located on the Rio Grande, almost on the border with the state of Minas Gerais and near Estrela D'Oeste, operate with reservoirs at 14.3% and 11.7% of their total capacity, respectively.
They are two of the lowest levels in the entire national energy production system, according to data from the National Electric System Operator.
Debts, lack of clients and drought
A few kilometers away, the Barbosa Marques family also struggles as best it can against the drought to earn a living with their land, also rented. The brothers José, 51, João, 40, Marcelo, 32, and their son Davi, 12, do what they can to try to save the crop, condemned for lack of water. They planned to collect a ton of papaya, which will remain at 250 kilos: without water, more than half of the fruits will not develop. Where before was the Viadão stream, which supplied the local weir, now there is a field with grass. The situation is so serious that even irrigation is not enough. “We water two hours a day just to keep the plants alive, when the ideal would be eight hours,” says José. Because there is not enough water. “If you leave the pump on for longer, everything dries up.Even if we had all the money in the world to pay for water, we have nowhere to get it ”, he explains.
From left to right, João, Davi, Marcelo and José during the papaya harvest on the land rented by the brothers. Lela Beltrão
Added to the lack of water is the $ 20,000 debt for the purchase of equipment and machinery at a time when the horizon of the drought was not so arid. To try to alleviate costs, they have sold one of the agricultural machines they bought last year, which spreads soil on the trunk of the papayas so that they do not fall under the weight of the fruit. This hard work will now have to be done by hand. The only patrimony that the brothers have left is a tractor from the 1980s. “We go to the bank to try to get a loan with good conditions and we don't get anything, because we don't have any property [land] in our name,” Marcelo laments. . To top off the situation, with schools closed due to restrictive measures imposed by the coronavirus pandemic, another problem emerged for the Marques family.A part of the fruit production was sold through food supply programs to municipal and state schools. Without classes, the brothers lost one of their main clients.
“Little by little, family farming is disappearing and only the big producers remain”, affirms resigned Claudinei Ferreari, 53, president of the Cooperativa de Agricultura Familiar de Fernandópolis, a neighboring city of Estrela D'Oeste, which has 26 cooperative members . “Our generation, from 40 to 60 years old, will stay in the field, because that is what we know how to do. But young people will not want this difficult life, ”he says. This is the case of Davi, the son of Marcelo Barbosa Marques, who helps his father and uncles. “I want to be a biologist. I don't see a future in agriculture, ”he explains. Despite his young age, he knows what is happening in the country. “It is global warming. That's why everything is dry. I see it on television, ”he says. The oldest of the uncles, José, adds: "Soon we will have wars over water."