By Amanda Perobelli and Lisandra Paraguassu
ELDORADO DO SUL, Brazil (Reuters) – After three days of heavy rain, Edite de Almeida and her husband fled their flooded home in early May and released their humble dairy herd onto higher ground. Nearby, the waters rose above his head and within a day were hitting the roofs of the houses.
Record flooding in southern Brazil, the result of weather patterns intensified by climate change, only began to abate after displacing half a million people in the state of Rio Grande do Sul and killing more than 160.
The full extent of the losses is still being highlighted, especially in rural areas where farmers like Almeida and his family produce much of Brazil’s rice, wheat and dairy products.
Of his 60 laying hens, only eight survived. Their cows have nowhere to graze in the flooded landscape.
“I’m not grieving. I am grateful, because there are many who lost much more than us”, said Almeida. “I’m grateful we survived and I grieve for those who lost family members.”
“Now the priority is to save the animals. The calves are still nursing,” she added.
Her husband, João Engelmann, takes daily walks on foot, by tractor and by boat to bring all the food he can find to the herd. He returns soaked every night after walking with friends around the farms, helping to remove dead cattle and caring for the survivors.
A neighbor found a dead pig in his room. Everywhere, rice and vegetable fields were destroyed.
These were among almost 6,500 family farms flooded by this month’s torrential rains, according to analysis of satellite data by consultancy Terra Analytics.
The floods shook agricultural markets as they disrupted the soybean harvest, destroyed silos, damaged agricultural exports and killed more than 400,000 chickens. The government is aligning rice imports to mitigate the impact on national inflation figures.
Destroyed farms and roads around the state capital, Porto Alegre, have contributed to food and water shortages in the region, worsening the crisis that has disrupted the lives of more than 2 million people.
Parts of the state have recorded more than 700 mm (28 inches) of rain so far this month, national weather service INMET said – more than London’s average rainfall in a year.
As floodwaters began to recede in recent weeks, Almeida got her first glimpse of her devastated home, with stained walls, destroyed appliances and belongings covered in mud.
“I can’t think about the future. This belongs to God”, said Almeida. “I don’t expect to have what I had before again. We’re starting over,” she added, grimacing through her tears.
STARTING AGAIN
Almeida and Engelmann know what it means to start from scratch.
They met in the 1980s, in one of the first camps of the Landless Rural Workers Movement, in the center of Rio Grande do Sul, where the movement – the largest of its kind in Latin America – began, occupying rural properties to demand the land reform.
They married and had their first children at that camp, called Cruz Alta, before the state government gave them permission to settle in Eldorado do Sul, about 70 km (45 miles) west of Porto Alegre.
They are among 30 families in the settlement who have produced enough rice, vegetables, milk, eggs and pork to earn a living, build and furnish homes and send their children to university.
The floods left all of that at stake.
Almeida, Engelmann and their daughter sleep in the back of a truck in a neighbor’s warehouse, improvising a domestic routine while putting their lives back together.
“I’ve been through it all in the camps – the challenges of cooking, sleeping. I learned to live like this. But I didn’t think I would do it again,” said Almeida.
One of his closest friends, Inácio Hoffmann, 60, had been retired for just four months when floods devastated his farm, killing 13 of 22 dairy cows.
“It’s so grim to transport and bury these creatures that we care for every day,” Hoffmann said. He is considering whether he should leave everything behind and try a new life somewhere else.
Almeida said his family is determined to resist.
“We came from nothing. We returned to nothing. Now we start again.”
(Reporting by Amanda Perobelli and Lisandra Paraguassu in Eldorado do Sul; additional reporting by Ricardo Brito in Brasília; editing by Brad Haynes and Alistair Bell)
