Stories of Paraná - Black Frost

Stories of Paraná - Black Frost

Black frost
Ernesto Carvalho

- Your servant has nothing sadder than a frosted plantation.
The first time I heard this whining was in a place in Bela Vista do Paraíso, near Londrina, on July 20, 1975. Three days before snowed in Curitiba, the first time since 1928. Most beautiful thing! Not much snow, but the reaction of the people.
The sizudos curitibanos made the city a huge playground, they all became children with smiles and parties that Carnival has ever managed to boot.
Right was the newspaper that mancheteou on the first page: "Snow heats Curitiba". But while curitibanos went to sleep that night soul heated, the Northern state began to form on plantations frost most of our recent history.
Which the farmer could not sleep that night?
Have many ways to predict a frost eve, teaches the small farmer of Bela Vista Paradise. Clear starry night in cold, frost is almost certain. Clear starry night cold and wet ass muzzle, frost is most certain.
On the night of 17 to 18 July 1975 had it all.
Many cafeicul-ers tried to minimize the damage right making bonfires with old tires in the middle of the plantation. The heat and smoke were avoiding the formation of ice.
But not to burn the tires all the world, this time it was hopeless. The air was so cold that froze the sap in the stems of the plants, the land was so cold that froze the roots. It is a black frost, the worst.
- Your servant has nothing sadder than a plantation frosted! Said the farmer-Theodoro France, sitting in an old trunk in front of the mahogany plantation, looking sad and lost.
Two days after a severe frost the plantation is not sorry for what is seen, but on the preview of what will come. Two days after frosted, the plantation has its very dark green, leafy trees continue as if everything was normal.
But plants are dead.
A few more days and the leaves acquire a dark brown color, then begin to fall, and left the bushes, peeled the whole plant dry, lifeless.
Million coffee trees have dried this way in 1975. Saved only plantations located in larger shoals, where frost does not form and the icy winds do not blow.
Lifeless, coffee plantations had to be plucked, but in its place not all farmers turned to planting new coffee trees. Many preferred soybeans, or corn.
Some even planted sugar cane and pasture.
Sacrilege! Sugarcane and pasture in one of the most fertile land in the world.
The result can be seen today in production statistics and the rural and urban landscape of the entire Paraná. The state lost, never to regain position as the largest producer of coffee. Worse, the overnight hundreds of thousands of rural workers lost jobs. The coffee is of the labors of the field that is more labor-intensive, unlike soy or livestock.
The evicted field became part of the "day laborers" in small towns, the slums in the medium and large.
Disinherited all equally lucky.
Right was the besieging of Bela Vista do Paraíso:
- Your servant has nothing sadder than a frosted plantation.

Ernesto Carvalho, broadcaster


Source: Stories of Paraná, Brasil.