Rio, February 25, 2004 (Agência Brasil - ABr) - Employing six thousand people directly and indirectly in the state and generating annual resources on the order of R$ 40 million, the Flowering Program, which provides incentives to floriculture in the interior of the state of Rio, will create an additional 1,800 jobs this year in various municipalities in the mountain, metropolitan, center-south, shoreline, and southern regions of the state.

According to the state secretary of Agriculture, Christino Áureo, the program is intended to bring progress to regions of the state through floriculture. Áureo pointed out that the activity employs between 15 and 20 workers per hectare, for gross earnings that vary between R$ 50 thousand and R$ 100 thousand, a return 30 times greater than other crops, such as corn and beans, for example.

On a global scale, the flower market is responsible for over US$ 50 billion, annually. In Brazil the flower and ornamental plant sector, including the retail market, generates US$ 2 billion annually. Rio currently has around 800 flower producers, and the total area cultivated in the state comes to 1,253 hectares. (DAS)