Public Story
Agro and Covid-19
To top that, unfortunately, Covid-19 and its new mutations are not the only problems Brazilians have to face nowadays. After all this time, the pandemic also begins to collapse in other sectors besides health - a domino effect. The lockdown impacts agriculture and those who depend on it to survive, for instance. The small farm producers, on the other hand, are not included in the Government financial aid. The prices for the raw supplies are increasing monthly, and many small farm producers are struggling to keep their business running. Because the prices are going sky-high, food is getting more expensive, even just for the basics. Major of its citizens are unemployed or facing serious financial problems, some are already starving without food or eating only a meal per day.
Marco Antonio, 65, a retired engineer, nowadays works as a rural producer. In the last years, he owns and works in his production of free-range eggs in a small countryside city called Araçoiaba da Serra in Brazil. Although the routine in the hens continuous, the pandemic of Covid-19 makes the routine harder on the farm producer, especially on the small ones, like Marco, who needs to take extra care of themselves, be sure the lockdown doesn't affect the animal's routine either their supplies, and do all the extra procedures with less help.
The rising prices is one of the biggest concerns of Marco, who saw his incoming decreasing due to the option to not pass the full rise to his customers.
For example. this year because of the pandemic of Covid-19, Marco had a hard time replacing the chickens. Because he raises them naturally, respecting their ups and downs production, that made his production, which normally drops this time of the year, reduces even more due to belate arrival of the new chicks. As a result, the low production made him lost some sales, even clients.
Marco takes care of the hens, does their food, prepares the eggs for the sales, there is a lot of heavy work. Tiredness sometimes is easy to be noticed. The work starts very early in the morning, somedays goes beyond nighttime. But the joy of the daily life in nature with his "girls", as he affectionately refers to his chickens, seems to give him an extra strength to keep going on, even in times like this, where the future looks so uncertain.
After one year of all the struggles the quarantine life brought upon the producers, it is a huge challenge to keep the business running. And with no perspective of when the situation is getting better in Brazil, Marco is one of the luckiest Brazilian, with his vegetable garden and smaller wage, he is surviving better than many of his compatriots.
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