The shareholders were all strong leaders committed to seeing these projects come about, were very committed to the environment, to watershed protection, and reduction of the use of chemicals. The Brazil I visited is not the one you read about in the Farm magazines. This was a very remote area of Brazil, electricity came about two years ago thanks to a rural development grant, donkey-carts were the most common mode of transportation, and telephones were a rarity. This is a mountainous region where coffee is the primary crop. You see some corn, rice, and beans growing but only for their own consumption.
Mechanization is nearly unheard of and transportation is costly.
The roads were hilly, muddy, rutted, narrow routes that you maneuver rather than drive on. The traditional mode of farming was to clear the land and keep it bare. As a result, after a number of years erosion and depletion of soil nutrients left the ground useless. The Loan Fund we helped create is targeted at the farmers described above. It is very difficult for small farmers to acquire operating loans especially for alternative crops or practices.