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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 March 2009
Ceará occupies an area of 146,817 km2 in northeastern Brazil, where the climate is tropical and there are only two seasons, rainy and dry. Frequent droughts have serious consequences for subsistence farming, resulting in precarious living conditions for the rural inhabitants. In the absence of any industry to provide employment for labor, low incomes prevail, with 90% of the population receiving incomes below the minimum wage for farm workers (9).