Brazil?

[greenboy]

Did you hear some americans are buying land in Brazil and homesteading down there? they are planting soy beans, and cotton llike crazzzyyyy, and making a profit. did you hear anything about this?

[CJ]

We have a contract offer to go work at the nuke plant in brazil this June, in Rio de Janeiro, for a year to 18 months. We thought long and hard about this (and haven't completely ruled it out yet) as the opportunity to see the culture and the Amazon would be an awesome opportunity, but I'm not so sure now is a good time for Americans to be down there.

The thought had crossed our minds too, that it would be a great way to explore that area and see about the possibility of living there if things keeping going to hell here... but I'm not sure that's enough time to really see all the negatives in a foreign country that would simply never cross one's mind.

[Pony]

I have heard that people going to Brazil have found the government more restrictive than ours here in the States, but... {shrug}

If you like to hunt, or if you're planning to hunt for food, I'd look into gun laws down there.

Pony!

[Gideon's War]

I watch the show farm and rach real estate (it show farms and ranches available for sale across the US and south). They had on a plot of 57,000 acres (it was a valley in a mountain range) and looked nice. Really cheap. The only thing was you had to be constantly armed against the FALN (local disenters of government policy) against kidnappings, ransoms, livestock rustling, etc.

I'd rather sleep soundly on my 30acres than be worried about mine or my families life at any given moment.

[FrankTheTank]

A couple of thoughts since i've looked into traveling through Brazil.

Yes, some ares are dangerous--big whoopie...watch WGN on any given night!
Yes, Brazil is a huge country with a diverse population...its area being just a little smaller then the US but have a population 2/3 that of the US.

Yes, Americans are buying up huge "ranches" and growing Soybeans, among other things (read that in the Economist i believe). The price of land there, like anywhere, has gone up up up!

No, they don't speak Spanish, but they do speak Portuguese.

Yes, Brazil has very hot ladies! Carnival!

Watch the BBC series "Amazon" and you'll want to pack your bags tonite and leave in the morning (better hava a passport). I would like nothing more in life, then to take my fishing gear and go fish the backwaters of the Amazon!

[snoozy]

NPR's Morning Edition tomorrow morning (Wed) will be having a segment on an American farmer in Brazil. i don't know anything more about it than that -- it just caught my ear as I was tuning the radio.

[Christiaan]

Brazil has quite a good sized population of Amish that migrated there after state governments here couldn't be bothered to preserve their way of life.
As for "homesteading" to grow soy and cotton, both of these crops are doing tremendous environmental, economic and social damage in Brazil and elsewhere in South America. "Independant" farmers basically in servitude to multi-national corporations.

[newengland]

Originally Posted by greenboy

Did you hear some americans are buying land in Brazil and homesteading down there? they are planting soy beans, and cotton llike crazzzyyyy, and making a profit. did you hear anything about this?

There are already cotton farmers from the USA in Brazil. In Americana, Brazil.

After the Civil War [aka the War of Northern Aggression, the Second War for Independence (which was lost); or as the Union called it, The War of Rebellion]-anyway, after the War, there were hundreds of southerners who could not stand the thought of staying in a country that trampled on the Constitution and States Rights, so they moved to Brazil. The Brazilian leader wanted the southerners to move to the part of the country that has a similar climate, so that they would start cotton plantations, and develop that part of the country. The emmigrants founded Americana, Brazil. It is said that they still speak English with a southern accent.

Here is one short article:
http://www.researchonline.net/sccw/brazil2.htm

I don't mean to change the direction of your thread, just thought it was a good time to share an interesting bit of history.

[kenuchelover]

Originally Posted by FrankTheTank

Yes, Americans are buying up huge "ranches" and growing Soybeans, among other things (read that in the Economist i believe). The price of land there, like anywhere, has gone up up up!

But folks should recall this is NOT homesteading.... it's setting up a major agribusiness (& exporting the crop overseas). A homestead sized operation wouldn't get much interest from the Brazilian govt (they want big investors) AND wouldn't be able to compete with locals..... the economy is MUCH poorer there, you'd be dropping your standard of living considerably to merely "homestead."

There are also major social & security issues involved.... Brazil has MAJOR poverty, and (despite official claims to the contrary) is seriously racially stratified. Locals WOULD resent rich gringos coming in & buying land while local peasants live in unhygienic squatters camps. Locals WOULD consider robbing the rich (by their standards) white gringo a moral option. And you'd either be participating in stealing land from indigenous tribes & raping the rainforest.... OR getting local landowners ticked off at you for NOT going along with the system. And paying local workers the going rate would be labor exploitation.... while paying them more would get other employers ticked at you.

Remember, Brazil is a country where massacres of Indian villagers is STILL going on, where local landowners hire thugs to murder anybody opposing them, where crime is rampant. It's a nice country in many ways... and well worth visiting.... but parts of it are more like the Old West crossed with a gang war than like a modern country.

Land quality is also a major risk.... one thing that happens is that forest land is cleared, intensively farmed for a few years (till it's worn out & heavily eroded), then turned into grassland fit only for raising cows. Be SURE you've personally inspected any land you consider buying, done soil tests AND interviewed folk OTHER than the sellers about use history. Watch out for major herbicide/pesticide usage.... Brazil is much looser about such things than we are.

Originally Posted by FrankTheTank

Yes, Brazil has very hot ladies! Carnival!

But play safe.... recall that Brazil ALSO has a very high rate of HIV infection & other such gifts you DON'T want to bring home as souvenirs.

Originally Posted by FrankTheTank

Watch the BBC series "Amazon" and you'll want to pack your bags tonite and leave in the morning (better hava a passport). I would like nothing more in life, then to take my fishing gear and go fish the backwaters of the Amazon!

Yep.... far better to visit than to try moving to.

[Tracy Rimmer]

We actually used to have a poster around here from Brazil. Randall -- where are you? Haven't heard from him in a while.

I think anywhere you can go and live as you wish to must be a good place. I'm not convinced it would be South America for me -- but to each their own.

Tracy

[Quint]

I've spent some time in Brazil and enjoyed it much more that I thought I would. Of all of Central and South America that I visited, I would rank Costa Rica as the country I would most like to rule as Military Strongman with Brazil and Argentina tied in second place.

Outside the tourist and wealthy areas the cities in Brazil were quite scummy (as one would expect) but once you got out the real squalor things were quite nice and I really enjoyed it. The folks were quite nice generally. You had to be careful of course like you do whenever you travel but I never felt any less safe than I did in any large US city. The farm/ranch where I spent a good deal of my time was remarkably similar to a farm you might find in the Midwest. Even some of the same crops. Being a guy I would be remiss if I didn't mention that the girls in Brazil were simply...well....stunning. Mercy.