Midwest experiences business boom – 07/10/2023 – Market

Most of the pioneers from southern Brazil who arrived in Mato Grosso in the 1970s in search of land did not have schools or hospitals nearby. Many of today’s adults were taught literacy at home by their parents, and depended on home remedies.

At first, they hunted for food and lived under canvas tents. When they needed hospitals, they traveled long dirt roads to larger cities, along the BR-163, which runs vertically through Mato Grosso.

In less than 50 years, the reality of these cities, and of the second and third generations of pioneers, is no different from that of Brazilians in the South and Southeast. They live in modern and organized municipalities, with paved roads for their trucks and SUVs, well-equipped schools and hospitals, and landing fields for small planes.

Mato Grosso concentrates the first, third and fourth places among the municipalities that produce the most grains in Brazil. Another seven cities in the state are on the list of the 20 most important.

These are municipalities that have become centers of attraction for investments beyond agribusiness, with accelerated real estate expansion and job creation for migrants from other states. The service sector also has good quality and diversity in these cities.

In 16 years, Mato Grosso’s GDP grew 121.3%, according to MB Associados. As a comparison, the evolution of São Paulo was 41.5%.

According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock, Sorriso, Sapezal and Campo Novo do Parecis, visited by Sheet, head the list of the largest producers in the state. From a political point of view, they still show ostensible signs of support for former president Jair Bolsonaro (PL), with Brazilian flags and photos of the former president everywhere.

Along the BR-163 and 397 km north of Cuiabá, Sorriso has expanded in its 37 years to the point where new condominiums border soy and corn farms. In the so-called Cidade Nova, on the other side of the BR-163, where Sorriso is now expanding, practically all the lots of a new development with 1,000 plots of land were sold within days of launch.

The cheapest, measuring 300 m², cost R$ 150,000. The most expensive, with 1,368 m², at R$ 1.5 million, sold to local and foreign investors. According to Brasil Imóveis, the plan is to add another 20,000 lots to the area.

According to Mayor Ari Lafin (PSDB), since he took office in Sorriso, in 2017, the population has grown from 85,000 to 110,000 inhabitants; and the city’s GDP jumped from R$ 3.9 billion to R$ 14 billion with the arrival of new companies and accounting headquarters for farms in various parts of Mato Grosso.

“The biggest problem today is the schools. We have one hundred more children per month looking for vacancies due to the flow of people who come here”, he says. In the coming months, five more units will be inaugurated, adding 1,200 vacancies to the teaching network.

Despite population growth, one of the problems in Sorriso is finding labor to build new homes, businesses and grain storage silos, which leads builders to import workers.

“I have 150 vacancies for immediate hiring, but I only got 50 people in the last few days”, says Claudiane Guerrini, from Santa Catarina, who has lived in Sorriso for 16 years and is the human resources manager at construction company Escal.

When the report was in the city, Guerrini closed the hiring of 18 workers from Maranhão, brought by Janildo Soares, 53, who usually recruits labor in his state. At the hotel where the reporter stayed, a recent arrival from Maranhão did not know how the elevator worked.

The multiplication of houses and people causes a series of enterprises to pull other activities.

According to Oliandro Albino, 42, from Paraná, who has been in Sorriso for 35 years, his company with 27 employees sells and installs up to ten fiberglass pools per month, at an average price of R$25,000 each. “They’re for the middle class,” he says. Of the most expensive ones, masonry, he sells 35 a year, for R$ 250,000 each.

Sorriso’s wealth, as well as neighboring cities, comes mainly from soy, corn, bean and cotton plantations — in addition to other businesses that grow in the city. The new fever in the region are the corn ethanol plants, which are spread along the BR-163.

Adriano Melo, 30, who has been working on a farm for 13 years operating agricultural machinery, earns “clean” R$6,000 a month and says that, with the help of his wife’s income —an accountant at a local finance company— he bought a property valued at Rs. $250k. Now, he is preparing to build a second house for rent. In Sorriso, renting a two-bedroom property can exceed R$2,500.

Melo works for Thiago Stefanello, owner of a farm next to Sorriso, where he produces soybeans, corn and beans. This year, despite the good harvest, Stefanello complains about the price. “We started selling soybeans in January at R$160 a bag. Now it’s at R$105. With no space to store it to wait for a better price, my ‘salary’ dropped. It’s the market. Patience.”

In most of the farms in the region, such as Stefanello, the planting area seems to be consolidated, with plantations intersected by environmental preservation zones. In the cerrado region, which includes part of Mato Grosso, preservation, according to the Forestry Code, must keep 35% of the area intact.

374 km from Sorriso, in the west of the state, Campo Novo do Parecis is another municipality in strong expansion. Its history begins before emancipation, in 1988, when the gaucho Armando Brolio, aged 33 and already deceased father of the current deputy mayor, Antonio Brolio (Republicanos), 50, arrived in the region.

In 1974, the Brolios occupied Union land, encouraged by the military government at the time to populate distant areas of the country.

At first, the family slept under tarps and hunted for food. The property title would only come out in 1979. It was Armando, the father, who donated an area of ​​his property for the construction of Campo Novo do Parecis, which started from an inn. Today, the family farm is adjacent to one of the limits of the municipality, which grows in all directions.

Between the end of 2016 and May of this year, the total number of companies in Campo Novo do Parecis jumped from 1,454 to 5,518. According to Brolio, the lack of labor is widespread in the city of 46,000 inhabitants. “If 2,500 people arrived now, everyone would find work.” On his farm, there are three vacancies open, with a salary of R$ 3,000, for general helper services.

109 km west of Campo Novo dos Parecis, by road that crosses the Utiariti indigenous reserve, Sapezal is another of the cities in the region undergoing strong expansion. The local population reached 29,000 people in the 2022 census, a 60% increase compared to 2010.

Unlike other farms in the region, large agribusiness groups dominate the surrounding land and production. The city was conceived by André Antonio Maggi, founder of the Amaggi group, a giant in the sector that competes in the region with groups such as Scheffer and Bom Futuro.

Altair de Lara, 42, coordinator of the branch of agricultural machinery company Case in Sapezal, says that, in good harvests, he sold 83 harvesters in a single year. On average, your dealership invoices around R$ 200 million annually.

To meet the demand for diesel oil for the machines on the farms, another farmer and local businessman, Vanderlei Bianchi, 47, set up a distribution company that sells 8 million liters of diesel per month.

“When I arrived here, at the age of seven, it was my mother who taught, and the nearest doctor was 200 km away. Today, nothing is missing”, says Bianchi.