Scores of sugarcane planters hack at the bare ochre hillside in Alagoas in northeastern Brazil with four-foot hoes, tilling up to four miles of land per day for just 41 Brazilian reals. That’s less than $8, for each backbreaking shift.
The workers’ daily wage does not go very far these days in Brazil. Food and fuel costs are soaring, driven by multinational and commodity speculators. The spectre of hunger is back in rural Alagoas, ranked seventh in the 2021 poverty index of 146 Brazilian municipalities compiled by Marcelo Neri of the Getulio Vargas Foundation (FGV). In Alagoas, 64% of the population earns less than $5.50 a day and many of the workers, as in other parts of the country, are counting the days until the 2 October presidential election and an expected victory for former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva at least in the 30 October run-off.
“Lula will bring down the prices,” said Jose, a cane planter in his thirties, recalling the massive social transformation for low-paid workers – especially in the northeastern region – engineered by Lula’s Workers Party governments between 2002 and 2014. His father and grandfather both worked cutting sugarcane and his more distant relatives served as plantation slaves.
