The three Cowboys, the championship favorites, place their wide-brimmed hats on their chests and are lit by a fire barrier in a darkened, horseshoe-shaped stadium. Kneeling, with their fringed legs in the sand, they join the audience in praying a prayer recited by the announcer. The anthem sounds and the participants leave. And shortly afterwards Bruce Springsteen roars “Born in the USA” from the speakers. A door opens and a cowboy appears on the back of a huge bull, jumping with tremendous power. Now the show begins. We are in the rodeo capital of Brazil. If the announcer and the rest of those in attendance didn’t speak Portuguese, it could be Texas. Every August, the largest rodeo festival in Latin America takes place in the city of Barretos, about 500 kilometers from São Paulo. A festival that beautifully embodies the strength of Brazil’s interior, its agricultural sector, its industries and services. As the country’s main economic engine, agriculture accounts for 25% of GDP.
This festival dedicated to dairy workers (a Festa do Peão de Boiadeiro), which attracts more than a million visitors in ten days at the end of August, reflects the power of central and western Brazil, inland regions with a very different culture from the coast, the bossa nova and samba. Miss Rodeo 2023, Danielle Macedo, a 26-year-old lawyer, walks through the venue in a stunning mini, two-tone boots and a Our Lady of Aparecida, the patron saint of Brazil, embroidered on her hat. Here sertaneja musical duos (the local version of country), cowboy hats, big buckled belts, Wrangler jeans, huge crucifixes on men’s chests, conservative values and the traditional family triumph.
This is the festive face of the most dynamic Brazil. The one that is growing the most in terms of income and population. It is creating jobs and demanding workers as it looks politically after the electoral defeat of Jair Bolsonaro, 68, who was an invaluable agribusiness ally at the pinnacle of power.
In August, the Brazilian municipality of Barretos celebrates the “Cowboy Festival”, one of the largest events in the world, which includes livestock exhibitions, rodeos and evening concerts. In the picture, a group of friends are dancing at the campsite in Avener Prado
A group of steers are brought to the rodeo site. The Barretos Festival first took place in 1956 when a group of cowboys who called themselves “the Independents” decided to hold an annual rodeo competition. Avener Prado
At the entrance to the rodeo, you can see the 27-meter-tall, 170-ton metal statue of a cowboy, surrounded by barbecue stands and shops offering products for participants. Avener Prado
A cowboy performs a bull riding demonstration during the rodeo. The festival fuels the nation’s main economic engine, agriculture, which accounts for 25% of GDP. Avener Prado
The audience follows the party from up in the stands. During the ten-day festival, the city of Barretos receives more than a million visitors.Avener Prado
Young people celebrate at the Barretos Festival. The rodeo is considered the second largest in the world. Avener Prado
Cowboys prepare for traditional bull riding. Before the start, the participants say a prayer, which the announcer recites. Avener Prado
The shopping area where the latest cowboy hats, spurs, belts with large buckles and Sertaneja music are offered. Avener Prado
An ox after competing at the rodeo. To take part in the competition, the rider must sit on the bull for eight seconds, holding it with only one hand and without the other touching the animal. Avener Prado
A woman is photographed riding an ox at the festival. Entry into the VIP box costs 2,990 reais (US$600), but you can enter the festival for 20 reais. Avener Prado
The cowboys train and eat like top athletes, and each participant goes into the ring wearing mouth guards and a rigid vest. Avener Prado
There are five stages, bumper cars, a playground, shops and food stalls on site. Sertaneja music is the favorite of visitors, a style that has become the most listened to in Brazil in recent years.Avener Prado
Eight seconds is the magic number in rodeo. To be scored, the rider must sit on the bull for eight seconds, held with one hand and without the other touching the animal. “Sometimes people say… Eight seconds? How small! But once you get up there, it takes forever,” explains Sebastián Procopio, 64, the first Brazilian to go to the United States to ride bulls. Procopio will be one of the judges of this rodeo night in Barretos. “If agriculture doesn’t do well, the rodeo doesn’t do well, because the competitions are usually organized by agricultural unions, exhibitions and fairs,” he points out.
In three decades, Brazil’s agricultural area has doubled and production has increased fivefold. About 26% of the country’s 8.5 million square kilometers (including parts of the Amazon) is pasture; According to data published by the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo, crops account for 9%. A huge leap for which the state provided the initial impetus, but which works with few subsidies compared to those granted in other agricultural powers.
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In the 1960s, the public agricultural research institute Embrapa sent hundreds of agronomists to the best universities in the world to learn from the best experiences. On this basis, and thanks to China’s appetite for soybeans, a sector has emerged that complains of being treated by urban elites like a bunch of ignorant city dwellers. They claim to be an army of entrepreneurs who have achieved enormous success with their farms and factories. They brag about technology and drones for fumigation.
For 2,990 reais (560 euros) the most exclusive ticket is sold in the VIP box of the Barretos festival, but for 40 reais you can also take part in this party, where there is no lack of slogans against homophobia and for respect for differences, nor does he nod to protecting the environment. They know that the world is placing ever higher demands on its purchases when it comes to the environment. And illegal deforestation and emissions from more than 200 million cattle are the biggest threat to the Amazon.
The popular flavor of rodeo spread in Brazil half a century ago thanks to a film starring Steve McQueen and directed by Sam Peckinpah, Junior Bonner, the king of rodeo. For the interior of Brazil, this event is the equivalent of Carnival, the highlight of the year.
The festival that made Barretos (pop. 122,000) famous across the country has never stopped growing. The first edition in 1956 was held under a tent borrowed from a circus and the champion took home a television. In the 1960s, Rio native Chico Buarque sang here, which is difficult to repeat given the current polarization; In the 1980s, riders replaced traditional bloomers with jeans. Now the grand prize is paid in dollars and includes a spot to compete in the American Millionaire Rodeo in Texas. The current venue, two million square meters with a stadium, five stages, a Ferris wheel, bumper cars, a playground, shops and food stalls for every taste – meat, pancakes, pizza, yaki soba… – has become too small. Alcohol is circulating in large quantities. But not even a weapon is allowed on the premises and to minimize the risk in the event of a fight, some restaurants replace cutlery with chopsticks.
Felipe Huber and Karine Hubner, a farming couple from the town of Juína, in the interior of Mato Grosso. Avener Prado
The sun sets as the newly groomed Hubners stroll between shops and food stalls. They drove two days to get here from Juína, a small town in the state of Mato Grosso. “It’s a little further than the end of the world,” he jokes. Around 1,900 kilometers of road are necessary to enjoy the major annual rodeo event.
Juína well illustrates the boom that the central regions and the interior are experiencing. Fueled by the livestock and timber trade, the city has grown spectacularly in less than a decade: “Until 2014 it had around 35,000 inhabitants, now there are around 50,000,” emphasizes Felipe Hubner, 35 years old. During this time, the population of Mato Grosso and other agricultural states increased by 20%, according to the census that just came out of the oven.
He comes to enjoy the rodeo he practiced years ago. His wife, Karine Hubner, 27, likes the show, but she’s more drawn to the big country music concerts, duos that sing about love and heartbreak and rural culture. A style that has conquered the rest of Brazil in recent years and has become the most listened to style.
In contrast to the majority of party members, Hübner is willing to talk about politics. He quickly makes it clear that he doesn’t like Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and his government at all. “Since the farmers didn’t vote for them, they come with a knife in their mouth,” he says, before listing what he’s referring to: “First, they encourage land invasions; Second, they cut 80% of the funding; Third, interest rates are rising for agriculture and fourth, they have a failed export policy: the bag of soybeans that cost 200 reais is now at 100 reais; and that of corn has fallen from 90 to 35 inches.
One of the directors of the competition, Marcos Abud, emphasized a few minutes before the first bull of the evening jumped into the arena that the organizer was apolitical. All presidents of Brazil and governors of São Paulo are invited. Whatever your political stripe is. The fact is that 77-year-old Lula never attended this party, which was created almost seven decades ago by young singles to raise funds for charity, in particular for the Hospital del Amor in Barretos, considered a reference center for cancer .
Bolsonaro, on the other hand, does not miss his appointment to Barretos even now that he is no longer in power, barred from running and involved in several legal proceedings. Last Friday, this community, in which he won with two-thirds of the votes, honored him as an honorary citizen. Later, at the rodeo, he was celebrated by thousands of people who filled the stadium that architect (and communist activist) Óscar Niemeyer built in the 1980s as a “sanctuary of highland culture.”
A rider wearing a helmet prepares to take part in the rodeo. Avener Prado
It is said here that after the USA, Brazil is the major power in the rodeo world with 13 world champions. The cowboys are very professional and train and eat like top athletes. The classics still compete with wide-brimmed hats that miraculously do not lose the bull’s first jump, but many have adopted a helmet reminiscent of the helmets of American football. Nobody jumps into the ring without a mouth guard and a rigid vest. But the ones who really ensure their integrity are the lifeguards, characters born as clowns to entertain the audience during breaks and whose mission evolved to ensure that the 2,000-pound bull doesn’t get on the Cowboy kicks or attacks him after letting go of him. or when he jumps into the sand after eight endless seconds.
It is clear that pressure from animal rights activists worries Barretos’ party. Many of those interviewed at the rodeo defend at the slightest opportunity the zeal for the welfare of the animals and ask the foreigner whether in Spain the bullfighters still kill the bull and whether there are protests… A debate that is also hot in Latin America.
A rider falls during his 8 second ride. Avener Prado
“Look, we’re from the interior. “Many Brazilians like football, the beach… But since we don’t have a sea, rodeo is our sport,” explains Víctor Marcus, 27, who happily agrees to talk about Bolsonaro and Lula. “It’s not that Bolsonaro is different, it’s that he’s better at everything. It defended the family and religious values I grew up with, it gave us the opportunity to get loans, it improved security, I got my gun license. When you live on a farm there is little security. You call the police and they don’t come.” Arriving from Jardinópolis, 140 kilometers away, with his wife, his baby, a friend and his wife, the group settled in at the campsite for the 10 days. There he danced between tents and caravans with a group of 70 friends who had traveled by bus from Belo Horizonte.
As night falls, a young man compares the rodeo in Brazil and the United States with his wife and baby. With a map of Texas on his shirt and the word “Patriot” on his belt buckle, he says he has competed in both countries and that the prizes there are much juicier. And with a small smile he points out another big difference. “Here we often joke that we Brazilians can learn a lot about rodeo from them, but Americans can learn a lot from our festivals. The rodeo ends there and everyone goes home. Here we continue to celebrate.” The coolness of the night is the perfect complement to indulging in dancing and singing until dawn.
Danielle Macedo, a 26-year-old lawyer and Miss Rodeo Brazil 2023, poses next to the rodeo stadium at the Barretos party. Avener Prado
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