The history of the Rezende Barbosa family, the Nova America Group shareholder, starts in the city of Tebas de Leopoldina, in Minas Gerais, and it has always been connected to agriculture. At the end of the 19th Century, the family left the region where it produced coffee in search of better planting conditions. In western São Paulo State they found quality land and new techniques for their coffee and cotton crops. They settled in Cravinhos, in the region of Ribeirão Preto, and bought the Estrela d'Oeste Farm in the township of São Simão, a property measuring 2178 hectares on which they cultivated 250 thousand coffee plants.
After the death of her husband, Eugênio Barbosa de Rezende, with his entrepreneurial spirit and great administrative capacity, D. Olga Ottoni de Rezende Barbosa took over the administration of the farms, and directed and oriented the work in the fields alongside her brother Nelson Ottoni de Rezende and her son Renato de Rezende Barbosa, even after moving to São Paulo. With the growth in business and with the intent to keep the family business growing, the Rezende Agriculture Company was created to administer the family's land. In 1944, Renato de Rezende Barbosa bought the Nova America Farm, in the city of Assis, where the first sugar and alcohol mill in the Paranapanema Valley was installed.
Ever since, and with the family's hard work, Nova America expanded its operations with the acquisition of other mills and companies in the agroindustrial sector. Today, with Roberto de Rezende Barbosa at the head of the business, together with his brothers, José Eugênio and Renato Eugênio, the company has become one of the 10 largest sugar and alcohol producers in the country and one of the 100 biggest private corporate groups in Brazil.
