Week 5 - Monday - Wednesday: One thing I forgot to include last night was that after dinner a group of students and Shirota took the long way back to the hotel and walked off their dinner. One of the highlights was seeing a Capybara. A Capybara is a large rodent native to Brazil. There were two of them just chilling down by the river that we walked along. The one that we had clear view of was rather large and pretty tame. It was dark so the pictures weren’t very good. Here is some more info and pictures.

Monday started with a tour of a vegetable, fruit and dairy farmer’s land. He had retired and then started this second career. He had several acres of land but only about five were useable for production because the rest was hills. This part of Brazil is very different than the rest of Brazil. Lots of rock and hills. He grew cucumbers, tomatoes, raspberries, beans, broccoli, cauliflower, blackberries, and had some cows for milk. His goal is to be all organic although being certified at this point is not necessary. He has his own niche of buyers and really has no plans to grow larger because labor is not available. No one wants to farm in this area of the country. His wife, daughter and he are the labor for the farm. During peak times they are spending 18 hours a day reaping or processing their produce. I enjoyed watching the butterflies and we were able to buy some of his produce.

From there we went to Momento Ambiental which is a huge privately owned waste management facility focusing primarily on Class 1 and 2 waste. Most of us have never seen a facility this large. The process for handling solid and liquid waste was discussed and we were able to see much of it in action. Quite eye opening.


We drove for a while and then toured Eisenbaun Draft Brewery. The guys were pretty excited about this visit. We were able to see how beer is brewed, what ingredients are used and what makes each of their 14 types of beer different. They brewed both light and dark beers as well as a beer that was even mixed with Champagne. At the conclusion we were able to taste the different types and purchase any gifts from their shop.

We drove a couple of hours to the state of Sao Joaquim. Sao Joaquim (SJ) is the only state in Brazil that has a significant variance in temperature which allows for the growth of fruits like apples, kiwi, grapes and pears. They need the lower temperatures (frost) to germinate. Tuesday began with visiting Hiragami farm and packing plant. He grows Fuji and Gala apples, kiwi, plums and grapes for wine. The packing plant was for the apples and all the apples are sold as whole fruit. Apples are a very important fruit in SJ and across the country. Since the apples are sold as whole fruit there is much time and effort to make the perfect fruit and all of the apples we saw look so much better than what we find in the states. We were able to visit the orchards and see apples, plums, kiwi, grapes and pears in their environment. This was the first we had ever seen kiwi and to be honest I had never really thought about how they are grown. They are trained to grow up and then across a support system so that the fruit hang down and then are manually picked. All the fruit we saw looked amazing. Very attractive to the consumer and those we sampled were very tasty too.

The next visit was amazing!! We visited Villa Francione which was a winery totally designed by a dreamer by the name of Dilor. He came from a very poor family and was able to be successful in several businesses including farming and selling ceramics. Over time he built this winery which exemplifies the beauty and love of wine. The winery sits on a large hill looking over several hectors of vineyards. He collected antiques from all the places he visited as he developed the plans for the winery. You could see the colorful ceramics as we moved through the winery. There are no words that describe what we saw. He thought about everything necessary to make a fine wine. After the winery we drove for six hours to get to our next destination which was the city of Chapeco which is still in the state of Santa Catalina.. Up until now internet has been very unreliable. It was midnight by the time we got there and many of us tried to contact friends and family members.

On Wednesday we then toured Aurora which is a cooperative but it’s primary products are hogs, chickens and milk. We watch the slaughtering of hogs from start to finish. This was the headquarters of Aurora. They process 4600 pigs a day. At this location there 2200 employees. Aurora has 22,000 employees total. For those students who have never seen a slaughtering plant, the experience was extremely thought provocking and sometimes uncomfortable and it was a great experience for everyone. From there we made an expected trip to a farm show which was a small version of Farm Science Review. The farm show was sponsored by the Aurora Cooperative. Several companies were represented even those like Dow, Syngenta, Dekalb, Dupont, Pioneer and of course those that are unfamiliar. We then drove for eight hours to arrive at the much anticipated destination of Foz do Iguacu.