Country file

Barbacena bounces back into

Barbacena in south east
Brazil has a turmoil
history of rose production.
New blood and
government impetus is
stimulating production
there again.
By Mauricio C. Mathias
mauriciomathias@hotmail.com

* Sebrae is a
semi-government agency
assisting small
and medium
businesses.

26

arbacena had a bright

start as an exporter of
roses in the early 70s
but this didnt guarantee a
place in the sun for this town
perched at 1,100m in hilly
Minas Gerais state, southeastern Brazil. Its terrain is full of
ups and downs, and so is its
history of rose growing. At a
time when other production
centers were starting to develop, nearly 100 local rose growers were already regularly sending their flowers to Europe.
However, a series of problems
nearly wiped the town out of
the flower business.
Barbacenas official title of
City of Roses remained, but
the few growers that continued
focused on the local market,
with only one exporter. As
there have been no investments
in varieties or technology, the
region fell seriously behind in
productivity. Now Barbacena
and eight nearby towns have 70
ha of ornamentals, and 35
growers, making it todays 5th
largest region in rose production in Brazil . Sebrae* invited
Flower Tech to see the changes
that are under way.

FlowerTECH 2007, vol. 10/no. 1

Programmed pruning is another change that is making the difference, by pruning on the 1st of August, the first harvest will
take place by the 20th of September, peaking again by the 25th of October and in December.

Growers were visibly demotivated until Felipe Alvim, a

young Sebrae manager, started
to encourage the sector again.
Firstly he requested a business
analysis, then he introduced
pin-pointed actions with which
he steadily gained the confidence of growers, such as tours
organised to visit flower production in other regions, and
to attend trade shows. Once
growers saw for themselves that
rose-growing was a profitable
business in other places, they
were convinced that new varieties and cultural practices could
in fact turn things around. And
so they did, or rather, are
doing. There is liveliness in
town again as growers find
themselves planning for the
future once more.

History
Flower cultivation has quite a
history in Barbacena. It started
in the 1950s by German and
Italian immigrants, and their
descendents. Anzano Loschi
started the growers coop
Uniflor, and after the success of
its roses in the national market,
exports started in earnest in
1969. In the early 70s shipments were being sent to the
US, the Netherlands, Sweden
and Switzerland.
At the time, a partnership was
signed with importers from
(then) Western Germany for
direct sales between the
months of November and
April; followed by the UK and
Italy in 1972. Between 1970
and 1976, Barbacena exported
an average of nearly 28 million

stems/year - perhaps not much

by todays standards, but at a
similar level with Colombia at
the time, and years ahead of
other dominant production
centres in Brazil today. Business
was doing well and growers
used to go to Europe to learn
new techniques and keep
updated. The first problem
came in 1977: increasing competition from other exporting
centers was already being felt,
when German importers
defaulted on their payment.
The legal rigmarole that
ensued was never fully settled;
the importers alleged a problem with one of the shipments,
but continued to request more
flowers. In the meantime
Uniflor kept on paying its local
suppliers believing in a settle-

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Country file

roses
ment, until the word came that
further imports had been
suspended, leaving previous
debts unpaid. During the success of the first years many
were attracted to rose-growing,
with 97 growers in the region
supplying Germany almost
exclusively. Since variety, size
and even packaging were all
geared to a specific market,
only a few were able to place
their products elsewhere. With
Uniflors bankruptcy, dozens of
growers had their land repossessed by banks, or had to sell
out: Strike one! The few that
did survive, were those that
either werent too indebted or
had national buyers as well;
from then on Barbacena continued as a major supplier but
only in the national market.
A second upsurge came in the
1980s when a German citizen
started Brazil Flowers, a farm
that intended to use new technology to, again, sell roses in
Western Germany. With investments in irrigation, pruning
and cold storage the company
took off, peaking between 1988
and 1992 when it exported 40
million stems/year. Eventually
it became the biggest employer

in town, with 800 workers. By

1995 though, competition
from Colombia, Ecuador and
African countries was winning
over their markets, and in the
next year the company was
forced to close down: Strike
two!

Today
In the decade that followed,
Barbacena kept a low profile
supplying only the regional
market, with isolated cases of
export. Even nationally, other
production centers moved further ahead.
However, with yearly average
temperatures of 17C, and 14.5
MJ/m2/month of global radiation, Felipe knew that the
regions production potential
had not changed, but the problem lay in outdated agronomic
practices and ultimately in
management issues. He then
started to introduce changes
following a Sebrae methodology of result-oriented actions. It
was necessary to reverse the
downward spiral, caused by little investment which resulted
in low yields with low economical return, and so forth.
Durval Almeida, a Brazilian

The success of traditional growers has attracted newcomers. Milton Pereira, leather
fern grower, started two years ago with 1,000 m2. Now he delivers 1,200 fronds
weekly, and plans to expand to 2,000 m2.

agronomist with experience in

Colombia was hand-picked by
Sebrae to train the growers,
who hired him as a consultant.
The first main change we
introduced was in nutrition,
since many growers relied on
top dressing during some
months and organic fertiliser
for the rest of the year; with
sprinkler irrigation. Using soil
and leaf analysis, the adoption
of drip irrigation allowed for
fertigation, supplying the right
nutrients at the right time.

Together with the change of

varieties, some growers have
seen a 200% increase in production, says Durval.
In addition, a more even
production decreased the serious drawback of stopping during the winter months: A 70%
drop in production was the
rule, hurting commercialisation
each year. Now with other
improvements in new pruning
techniques, training labour and
rationalising spraying we have
increased production in the red

Regional production was 1.5 million stems in 2004, having doubled by 2006, and projected to reach 5 million stems in 2007, whereas exports are expected to be 100,000 in that year.

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FlowerTECH 2007, vol. 10/no. 1

27

Country file
Flower festival remains steady
Throughout Barbacenas rocky history
one tradition has remained. This is the
five-day Festa das Flores- a festival
revolving around roses and flowers. Its
39th edition last October, was attended by
120,000 people, the main attractions
being flower stands prepared by different
farms and the sale of rose bushes for garden lovers. Grower Sheila Loschi specialises in the retail of rose plants, selling up
to 7,000 plants during the fair. The last
day of the festival attracts the most people, to watch a parade of flower-covered
tractors and floats, and see the crowning of a beauty queen.
Sheila is also the president of Abarflores, a growers association founded in 2000 with the sole purpose of
organising the festival and the agency Sebrae has also rallied growers around it.
Due to the history of rose-growing here, its no exaggeration to say that most growers were carrying a
heavy emotional baggage, explains Felipe Alvim, of Sebrae. Plus, many of the growers children wanted
nothing to do with floriculture, because they grew up during the boom and bust years. That raised the issue
of continuity and some growers were considering stopping altogether. Abarflores now has 28 members and
it estimates that the flower sector is responsible for 1,500 direct jobs, plus another 2,500 indirect ones.

Vegas variety for example, from

40 stems/m2.year to 120, while
reducing costs. The results
speak for themselves,
Barbacena production has doubled between 2004 and 2006.

Royalties
Among local growers, Jair
Marciano da Silva has been the
only exporter on a regular
basis. Now managing 9 ha
spread over 30 plastic houses,
he employs 45 people, harvesting 250 dozens daily. Just
before Valentines Day 2005,
one of his rose shipments with
80,000 stems was seized at
Lisbon airport because it contained registered varieties that
had not paid royalties (Flower
Tech 8, #2). He explains, We
were wrong. We lost that shipment and we legalised our production with the breeder at the
time. After that event, royalties became the talk of town,

28

FlowerTECH 2007, vol. 10/no. 1

and several breeders noticed

that Barbacena was on the
upswing again.
As a result, growers who united were able to negotiate collective purchases of new varieties with some of the breeders,
while go-alone growers ended
up paying full prices, and
breeders driving harder bargains lost an opportunity.
Breeder rights are covered
under the Brazilian law, as a
signatory of the UPOV-78, due
to a loophole in the legislation
however, vegetatively reproduced species were left out,
among them several ornamentals. An amendment to this law
has faced much red tape and it
is still to be voted on in congress.
The fact that older varieties
are being replaced by newer,
more productive and soughtafter ones is another reason for
the market success that is stim-

ulating Barbacena growers

again. Jair has been a grower
for almost 30 years, and during
this time he has navigated the
ups and down of the Brazilian
economy, from hyper-inflation
in the 80s to the lower US dollar exchange rate of today. He
sums it up, In the last 10 years
the price of older varieties has
gone down, but electricity and
diesel have gone up. The only
way forward is to invest in
higher-yielding varieties,
improve management and cost
control.

Opportunities
International breeders know
that an area of 70 ha of flowers
which is about to redevelop is
a great opportunity so several
of them have set up local trials
to display their products and
check their performance.
Around this total estimated
acreage, 60% are roses while

chrysanthemums come next,

followed by gerberas, orchids
and anthuriums. Upcoming
rose varieties are Carola,
Impulse, Girldfriend, Akito,
Greta, and Caballero. Jair estimates that 80% of what the
market wants are red roses, but
yellow has been increasing
steadily.

Perspective
Jair concludes, With all the
changes we introduced, my
average yield has gone up from
70 stems/m2.year (varying
from 20 to 120 according to
variety) to nearly 100 now. In
the end I can say it is a win-win
situation since a new, registered
variety costs me more per
plant, but the market pays
more for their flowers. His
main varieties for export are
Gala, Versilia, Tineker, Sandra,
Confetti, Texas and Vegas.
By helping to transform farmers into entrepreneurs, Sebraes
small steps are going a long
way to increase professionalism
in the Barbacenas flower sector. Isolation, both geographical, from its buyers, and among
growers themselves resulted in
a narrow and short-term view
of the market. Now with a
wider perspective, and not seeing themselves as a region with
only a glorious past, but with a
rightful place in the future,
Barbacena is back. We have
just started, says Felipe,
Unlike in the past, this time
we are banking on sustainable
production, now the growers
are in charge of their own
future. n

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