Agrishow halts the routine of residents and creates chaos in Ribeirão – 05/05/2023 – Market

Already used to facing heavy traffic to get to the Agrishow (International Fair of Agricultural Technology in Action), agronomist Carlos Eduardo Gulian left home this year with the aim of reaching the farm that houses the fair in Ribeirão Preto (313 km from São Paulo) at 8:30 am last Monday (1st). He only managed to enter the space after 11 am.

He was not the only one to face problems related to the agricultural fair, the main technology fair for the sector in Latin America. Residents of condominiums in the Agrishow region, employees who use the city’s Ring Road to get to work and people who go to bars, restaurants and motels experienced a week of chaos in the rich municipality in the interior of São Paulo.

The evaluation of the organization and the city hall, however, is that the city gains a lot economically with Agrishow and that the benefits are much greater than the problems.

The organization announced that business reached R$ 13.29 billion in this year’s edition, a record in the history of the fair held since 1994 in the city.

The organization of the event, after strong complaints from exhibitors and visitors in 2022, when the fair was resumed after a two-year hiatus due to the Covid-19 pandemic, implemented a series of changes with the aim of facilitating access for visitors to the location, at km 321 of the Antônio Duarte Nogueira highway. But it didn’t solve it.

The opening hours of the gates were changed from 8:00 am to 9:00 am, so that the flow of vehicles heading to the event did not mix with the normal traffic recorded daily at the site.

There were also changes in the parking lot, divided into five colors to separate visitors, exhibitors and service providers, and the adoption of the possibility of paying for parking in advance, to speed up entry.

“It’s difficult, everything that is done does not solve the traffic chaos. Soon people will start arriving at dawn,” said Gulian.

Not even the mayor of Ribeirão, Antônio Duarte Nogueira Junior (PSDB), escaped. This Friday (5), he said that it took him two hours and 40 minutes to cover a stretch of less than 3 kilometers on Monday.

“All of us, and the city as well, have a challenge for the next Agrishow […] On the first day, which was the most attended at the fair, we had more cars in the Agrishow parking lots than cars were on the Sunday of the last Formula 1 at Interlagos. So look at the dynamics and pressure of the presence of vehicles that Agrishow printed”, said the mayor.

At Leite Lopes airport, the main airport in the region, there was a 307% increase in the total number of landings and departures since last week, with the approach of the agricultural fair.

In bars and restaurants, there was a 24% growth in business, according to data from Abrasel (Brazilian Association of Bars and Restaurants) announced by the city hall, and the hotel chain, not only in the city, but also in neighboring municipalities, had 100% occupancy.

This despite charging BRL 3,000 a day per person for a room in a hotel that normally costs BRL 200 to BRL 250 and often requiring reservations for packages for the five days of the fair. The high demand also led to motels in Ribeirão being used as hotels – with this, the usual public of this type of establishment faced difficulties between Sunday (30) and this Friday.

If the wait to get to the fair was very long, those who live in the region also faced difficulties leaving or arriving at the eight condos surrounding the fair.

“[Precisamos] Improve access for our exhibitors and customers, which is what sustains the fair. If we don’t do that, people are fated not to come here anymore”, said the new president of Agrishow, João Carlos Marchesan.

With a record public of 195,000 visitors, Agrishow still had problems with the hygiene of the restrooms scattered around the farm. In addition to the traditional queues at the women’s restrooms, queues of up to 15 minutes under the sun of over 30º C were added to use the men’s restrooms.

Marchesan said he will expand the total number of bathrooms at the 2024 Agrishow, which will take place between April 29 and May 3.

SIGN FROM HEAVEN

President of honor of Agrishow, businessman Maurilio Biagi Filho defended the economic movement generated by the agricultural fair, which for him is “everything that is not computed”.

“Only from helicopters, I did a quick calculation here, we have a movement of BRL 1 billion, an economic movement that is not accounted for anywhere. Only people who take flights to friends’ houses, who go to I don’t know what. You have an economic movement at the fair of R$ 500 million within a radius of 120 kilometers from here. This is very important data, an observation of mine, of my whole life, that I observe this.”

The use of helicopters also caused funeral news related to the fair: one of them, which was flying towards Agrishow, crashed at the end of the afternoon of this Wednesday (3rd) in São Carlos (232 km from SP). According to firefighters, two people who were on the aircraft died.

Agrishow generated more than 5,000 temporary jobs for setting up and taking down stands, drivers, catering and cleaning services, among others.

WHAT TO DO

Nogueira said that adjustments will be necessary in the city and that collective work is needed, since there are variables that are beyond the jurisdiction of the city hall and involve highway concessionaires, Artesp, DER and the São Paulo State Department of Agriculture, for example.

“We need to make this positive move, with constructive solutions, so that we have less bottlenecks at the fair next year. Not that there won’t be, of course there will be, but we need to minimize these impacts, both at the entrance and at the exit”, he said. the mayor.