Sunday, March 28, 2010

San Paulo


Here are the stats. 21 mil people living in San Paulo of the 192 mill in Brazil. Brazil is 80% urbanwith 165,000 people with more than $1m in the bank and 50% of the population is middle class.Ther is a big divide between middle class and poverty.

70% of the power is Hydro and most of the cars run on ethonol which is 55% of the price of petroium. It’s ag sector is the second largest in the world and is only 5% of GDP. It has 220m hectares of undeveloped pasture of which 100,000 ha have the potential for intensive Ag. About50, 000 ha is curently intensivly farmed. To get a bank loan you have to pass an enviromental and social audit and the biggest limiting factor is transport. Which is crap, really crap?

However, San Paulo was great. The Brazilian love of life is easy to see. They embrace there artand culture which you can see all over the city in the form of gaffiti. Business see it as a honar to have there walls painted, and most of the art is very clever. But the city also has a dark side, where there is a big devide between rich and poor there is violence. This is evident in the police who wear bullet proof vests and are seen everyware. Like the poverty, you findyourself steppingover homeless people on the streets and you are warned to stay with the crowds at night.

But the people of San Paulo love their city and love the beach. We as Australians seem to fit right in, it's the only country Ive visited so far I feel at home in. Apart from the bullet proof vests!!!

3 comments:

Jenborg said...

Don't get too at home Rob. We're putting your crops in here.

Anonymous said...

What do you mean, the only country you felt at home in? I thought you guys had found kindred spirits in the Welsh...

Interesting stat about the renewable energy - is there any much talk of the conflict between using crops for fuel instead of food?

Robert Egerton-Warburton said...

No conflict here. If they didn't use it for fuel they would flood the market with sugar. They produce so much food and according to the agro with us most of the farmers are subsistence and could double yield overnight.