Carolina Gonçalves        Reporter Agência Brasil

Brasilia – The Amazon River is at record flood levels. And there is the worst drought in memory in Northeast Brazil.

In the state of Pernambuco, a total of 99 municipalities have now been placed in a state of emergency due to drought. But not just any drought. It is being called one of the worst droughts ever – certainly the worse in the last 50 years. It is so bad that 43 out of the 99 municipalities in a state of emergency are not even in the normally worse hit areas by drought, that is, the so-called "sertão;" they are in the “agreste,” a climatic transition area between the sertão and the zona da mata (coastal area).

The situation is pretty much the same in all the Northeast sertão and the agreste (known as semiarid (“semi-arido”), that is, not quite desert. These two geographic regions run parallel to each other, more or less north to south, through the states of Bahia, Sergipe, Alagoas, Pernambuco, Paraiba, Rio Grande do Norte and Ceará). They lie between the climatic regions of the “meio-norte” and the “zona da mata.”

 According to Pernambuco state authorities, less than 25% of the rain they were supposed to have during the last six months has fallen. Unfortunately that period includes the region’s rainy season.

Farmers say they have now lost 370 million tons of grain, worth over R$400 million. Ranchers say their herds (cattle, goats and sheep) are being decimated. The number of animals going to slaughter is up 120% over the same period last year.

 “Our herds once totaled over 6 million head. Now they are being shipped out. If they stay here they die because there is no pasture or water,” said Ranilson Ramos, the Pernambuco state secretary of Agriculture.

In some areas of the state, for example around Petrolânda, 60% of the cropland has irrigation systems and the population is doing better. Farmers have produce and are getting good prices. A sack of beans that cost R$100 in August now costs R$400. But the other 40% of the region is bone dry.

Allen Bennett – translator/editor The News in English – content modified

Link - Prejuízo com a seca na agricultura ultrapassa os R$ 400 milhões em PE