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Discover The Story of Ana Maria Braga‘s Relationship With The Countryside, The Scandal That Caused Her to Lose A Farm, And The Challenges of The Current Fazenda Primavera In Search of Profit.
Everyone knows Ana Maria Braga from TV, host of “Mais Você.” But she is also a farmer. She owns Fazenda Primavera in the countryside of São Paulo. Her connection to rural life is long-standing. However, not everything has been easy. Ana Maria Braga faced a financial scam and challenges in management. Discover the rural story of the presenter.
Ana Maria Braga was born in 1949, in São Joaquim da Barra, São Paulo. The daughter of a taxi driver, she grew up surrounded by farms. She frequently visited friends’ and neighbors’ farms. She fell in love with the rural lifestyle. She began to dream of having her own piece of land. Ana Maria graduated in Biology. Later, she completed a postgraduate degree in Animal Science in the capital. To pay for her studies, she worked at TV Tupi and fell in love with television. She then pursued Journalism.
Avestruz Master: The Scam of R$ 1 Billion That Cost Her First Farm
After leaving TV Tupi, Ana Maria Braga worked at Editora Abril. With her salary, she bought a small site with a waterfall. Years later, she sold the site and bought a larger farm, of 15 hectares. But her experience as a farmer was still limited. In the early 2000s, she fell for the Avestruz Master scam. The company sold ostrich chicks, promising to buy them back as adults for slaughter, with profits of over 10% per month.
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The government aims to reach 700 open markets for agriculture by the end of the year and has already opened 594 since 2023, with 29 products released in 9 countries in April.
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Guava producers in Rio Grande do Sul are discarding tons of fruit because the buying companies have simply stopped accepting the production, even with one of the best harvests in recent years, while consumers are paying increasingly higher prices.
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At the same time that a traditional farmer plants lettuce in the field and waits up to 90 days for the harvest, a single Japanese factory produces 30,000 heads of lettuce per day, without soil, without pesticides, and not dependent on the season, with automated harvesting that surprises the world.
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After soybeans, producers in the northwestern region of São Paulo are betting on sorghum in areas of up to 900 hectares and see the crop as a more economical and climate-resistant solution to ensure income, even with challenges of rain, drought, and lack of storage facilities.
Ana Maria Braga, like 50,000 other Brazilians, invested. She bought many chicks. She discovered that raising them was very expensive (infrastructure, expensive feed sold by Avestruz Master itself). In 2005, the scheme was exposed as a financial pyramid. Avestruz Master never bought back any animals and caused total losses exceeding R$ 1 billion to all its victims. Ana Maria Braga even had difficulty donating the ostriches. With the losses, she had to sell that farm.
Fazenda Primavera: Elite Cattle, Eucalyptus, and The Fight for Profitability
In 2006, Ana Maria Braga bought a new property: Fazenda Primavera. Located in Bofete (SP), it has more than 370 hectares. The property, built in 1960, was a stud farm. The presenter decided to raise elite cattle. She registered the brand “Sexy.” She used a complex reproduction method with purebred embryos. She had more than 500 animals at one point. The goal was to sell genetics, not meat or milk.
The elite cattle business did not work out. The cost was too high. It was the second time the rural property went bankrupt under her management. The move of “Mais Você” studio to Rio made things even more challenging. To avoid personal bankruptcy, Ana Maria Braga sold all the cattle. She transformed 100 hectares of pasture into eucalyptus forest, in partnership with a specialized company.
From Cattle to Organic Coffee: Ana Maria Braga’s New Bet on The Farm
The eucalyptus plantation also proved unprofitable. The cutting cycle is long (7 years) and does not cover the costs of the farm. Now, Ana Maria Braga is testing coffee cultivation. She set aside one hectare to plant organic coffee, with the help of a technician. If successful, she intends to replace eucalyptus and turn Fazenda Primavera into a large organic coffee farm. The expectation is that organic coffee will appreciate and finally make the farm profitable, after more than 18 years. The farm also has corn planting, an orchard with various fruits, and a giant garden that supplies employees and her home.
The Chapel on The Farm and Ana Maria Braga’s Personal Battles
Aside from her business ventures, Ana Maria Braga has faced significant personal battles. She has overcome four fights against cancer: skin (1991), colorectal (2001), lung (2015), and lung again (2020). The last one was more aggressive and inoperable. The presenter clung to her faith in Our Lady of Fátima. She promised to build a chapel on the farm if she were cured.
In April 2020, she announced her healing. She fulfilled the promise and built the chapel at Fazenda Primavera. The project grew, and today it houses more than 400 images of saints. Annually, Ana Maria Braga holds a Saint John’s party on the farm, starting with a mass in the chapel. Despite the ups and downs, she and Fazenda Primavera continue to move forward.
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