We started the day with breakfast together at the hotel in Sao Paulo, then took an hour drive (within the vast city) over to Rabobank, which is one of the highest rated private banks in the world. Rabobank is also one of the most well-known and largest food and agricultural-focused lending institutions in the world.  

One interesting fact that we learned is that one of the bank's customers owns a farm with over one million acres in crop production.  This is much more typical of Brazilian farmers than American.  We listened to speakers from different business units of the company: oilseeds, sugar and ethanol, orange juice and dairy, fertilizers, crop protection and seeds, and corporate social responsibility. After the presentations, each group got a chance to conduct private interviews with some of the Rabo executives for their research projects. Rabobank then hosted a wonderful buffet style lunch of quiche and sandwiches for us.  Thank you so much to Rabobank for this wonderful meal!

We arrived at our second destination early and got a chance to walk around the famous and ritzy Iguatemi Mall.  After 30 minutes of finding nothing we could afford, we walked over to UNICA (The Brazilian Sugarcane Association's) headquarters. Here we got a chance to speak with the Sustainability Manager, Luiz Amaral, about sugar cane production practices in Brazil as well as the conversion of sugarcane into ethanol.  We learned that Brazil is very advanced in the production of biofuels. They offer two grades of fuel: E-25 (25% ethanol blended with gasoline) and E-100 (100% ethanol), and many of their cars are flex fuel cars that can handle either grade. For comparison, in the US most of our fuel is a 10% ethanol blend with 90% gasoline.  Brazil seems to be ahead of the curve compared to the U.S. when it comes to using ethanol as a fuel source.  We were also surprised to hear that the food versus fuel debate is much less of a "debate" in Brazil than it is in America due to the use of non-foodstuff sugarcane rather than corn to produce ethanol.

After Luiz spoke, an economics representative from ABIOVE (Associação Brasileira das Indústrias de Óleos Vegetais), Daniel Amaral, was generous enough to come to the UNICA office to speak with our class about soybean production in Brazil from the perspective of the macro-economy.  This association represents soy producers in Brazil in the same fashion that the Illinois Soybean Association represents Illinois soybean growers.   

We ended our night with a University of Illinois - Brazilian Alumni Event hosted by College of ACES' International Alumni Relations Director, Louise Rogers.  There are many alums in Brazil who have come to Illinois as exchange students and graduate students who hold their UIUC experiences and degrees in very high regard.  A few of the alums even flew in from Rio de Janeiro just to be able to network with current students.  Conveniently, there are also two other student groups in Brazil at the same time as us: a group of James Scholar students from the College of Business as well as a small Horticulture class taught by College of ACES' Dan Anderson.  All three classes convened at our hotel in Sao Paulo for an evening of networking and celebrating with Brazilian U of I alums.  It was likely the highest turnout ever  for such an alumni event in Brazil. The alumni representatives were from different industries and professions. It was a great opportunity to meet with them and give them an update about what has been happening on campus from the perspectives of Richard Vogen, Director of Planning in the College of ACES and Dr. Mary Arends-Kuenning, Interim Director of the Lemann Institute of Brazilian Studies at U of I.  Additionally, along with two other students, our very own Lucas Frye was a crowd-pleaser giving updates about campus (including the "MIA" alma mater during graduation weekend 2013) and sharing with guests about the value of international experiences in education.

It's only day two but we have learned so much already about the business world in Brazil from alumni work experiences and the visits that we had today.

More photos from the Alumni Event forthcoming. Follow our photos on our Flickr account. Please also like us on Facebook!