The Brazilian government has promised to release some 10 billion euros for the reconstruction of the state of Rio Grande do Sul, a region devastated by unprecedented deadly floods and under the threat of more rain. The torrential rains which fell in this region of southern Brazil all last week will be particularly costly to the agricultural sector, the engine of the local and national economy.
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Head of State Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva chaired a meeting in Brasilia on Thursday to work on responses to the tragedy. The federal government has decided to inject “resources of the order of 50 billion reais (around 9 billion euros) into Rio Grande do Sul,” announced Finance Minister Fernando Haddad.
We offer a medida provision of R$50.9 for emerging businesses in Rio Grande do Sul for local workers, businesses, producers and local authorities. The main points of the 12 emergency medicines:
– R$495 million are securely available for 140 million…
— Lula (@LulaOficial) May 9, 2024
The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) will allocate around one billion euros of resources “for job protection, business support and infrastructure reconstruction projects”, announced the Brazilian president of the institution, Ilan Goldfajn.
Fields drowned under four or five meters of water: roads cut, livestock farms and warehouses inaccessible. A landscape of desolation and never seen before for peasant cooperatives in the State of Rio Grande do Sul. In the space of a year, some have already suffered a drought and three floods.
The state of Rio Grande do Sul is one of the major Brazilian soy-producing regions, used largely to feed livestock. The region was counting on a record harvest of more than 22 million tonnes this year, but bad weather could affect up to 5 million tonnes of seeds according to specialists who explain that a quarter of soybean fields still remained to be harvested.
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Rice production is also worrying since Rio Grande do Sul is by far the leading rice-growing region, with 6.9 million tonnes produced last year. Here too, 15% of crops remained to be harvested before the disaster
To deal with any shortages, but also to combat price speculation, Brasil has already announced that it wants to import rice from abroad.
Read alsoBrazil: the south of the country devastated by floods