Castelo dos Sonhos
Castelo dos Sonhos or Castelo de Sonhos is a district of the Brazilian municipality of Altamira, in the state of Pará. According to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics, its population in 2010 was 11,952 inhabitants, with 6,528 men and 5,424 women, having a total of 3,240 private homes. It is the most distant Brazilian district from the headquarters of its respective municipality, being located 950 km from the district-headquarters of Altamira. It was created in August 1990.
Due to the distance from the municipal headquarters, the district has a much closer connection with the municipalities of Novo Progresso and Guarantã do Norte, in Mato Grosso. Castelo de Sonhos is located on the banks of BR-163, in the region known as Serra do Cachimbo. Access to the headquarters is via the BR-163 and the Trans-Amazonian Highway. The Prefecture of Altamira maintains a non-district subprefecture, which is the organ responsible for local administration.
History
Created in 1990, having its territorial limits defined by Municipal Law N.º 1,634 of September 8, 2006, Castelo de Sonhos is a District of Altamira, consisting of indigenous areas, protection areas and expansion areas.The name of the district originated from popular music of the same name, which was widely performed in the region and became used to designate the local area.
Migration to the region began as an incentive for the military government, led by President Emílio Garrastazu Médici instituted by Decree-Law No. 1106 of July 16, 1970, or the National Integration Program. Using northeastern labor freed by the great droughts of 1969 and 1970 and the notion of Amazonian demographic voids, the slogans "integrar para não entregar" and "uma terra sem homens para homens sem terra" are coined. Thus, BR-163 was built that connected the region to the rest of the country. As this started the migration of families from the Southern Region of Brazil, with the aim of practicing animal husbandry, and between the 1980s and 90s, due to the news of the abundance of gold in the region, there was a migration of people from various regions of the country, mainly the Northeast and Central-West.
It became nationally known during the gold cycle in the region, this fact is mainly due to the performance of Marcio Martins, or Rambo do Pará, who left all of Brazil scared as such atrocities were committed.
After the golden cycle, the timber sector occupies the region's main economic potential.
The district has still not achieved emancipation. I won't start, because it is contrary to the interests of some, but today the difficulty of achieving political independence is due to an amendment approved in 1998 that made it difficult for the emergence of new municipalities.
Economy
The local economy revolves around logging, gold mining, soybean planting and, mainly, local commerce, which is very strong due to the distance of the municipality from major centers.The district currently has a cattle herd of approximately 240,000 head, almost all of which are Nelore cattle. The income from this activity is concentrated on the sale of animals for slaughter in the neighboring state of Mato Grosso, since there are no slaughterhouses under inspection service of any kind in the region.
However, tourism is a bet for some in the region, due to the virgin forests, waterfalls - some still unexplored - at different altitudes, rivers, hills and mountains.
Agriculture
The practice of agriculture in Castelo de Sonhos is extremely favorable due to its climatic conditions. While the other producing regions of the country are in the off-season, the region is already offering product. The rainy season begins in September, allowing the harvest in December, which is a great factor for soybeans and, even more so for rice, which precedes the harvest by a period of 40 days in other producing regions. Thus, there are advantages for the sale and price of the grain, with no need for a futures market contract.After the rice harvest, in December, Castelo de Sonhos offers all the conditions for planting soybeans, allowing the harvest in mid-April, resulting in less risk of losses caused by rain during the harvest period, not to mention the inconvenience caused by the poor condition of the roads, which would make it difficult to transport the soybeans.
If soybeans are planted in September, the crop is harvested in December, when the rainfall index is still low. Next, rice is favored for planting, which is harvested at the end of the rainy season, thus once again obtaining the advantages mentioned above. Another favorable point for rice cultivation is that it is offered to the market before the Santarém-PA region.
After the soybean and rice harvests, the weather conditions favor the planting of a green cover, thus avoiding the high incidence of sunlight on the soil, including sunflower and pigeon pea.
Pará has eight to nine months of regular rainfall, which does not require more complex irrigation systems. In Mato Grosso, there are six months of rain. Therefore, producers cannot plant soybeans in September, as it will rain heavily at the time of harvest, in March and April. "A good production system would be to plant rice in September and then plant a second soybean crop in the same area, planting in January or February and harvesting in June," explains Patrício Mendez Del Villar, from Cirad. The beans would still find space for a second "small harvest" in that same area.
Geography
Castelo de Sonhos is characterized by low forest lands, a topography that is extremely favorable for agriculture and also livestock farming, due to the great incidence of streams. Its rainfall varies from 2,300 to 3,000 millimeters/year, between the months of September and April, a period that includes the rainy season.It is among the most fertile lands in the country, with high levels of phosphorus, which is a rare nutrient in most Brazilian soils, and the other nutrients are found in very favorable levels, generating a low production cost. Castelo de Sonhos has the Curuá River as its river.