Vargem Grande do Rio Pardo is a municipality in the northeast of the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais.
The municipality contains about 16% of the 38,177 hectares (94,340 acres) Nascentes Geraizeiras Sustainable Development Reserve, created in 2014.
The main economic activities are cattle raising (1,200 head in 2006) and farming with modest production of coffee and mangoes, and corn.
The above figures can be compared with those of Poços de Caldas, which had an MHDI of .841, the highest in the state of Minas Gerais.
More up-to-date data from 2004 show that the lowest in that year was Manari in the state of Pernambuco with an MHDI of .467 out of a total of 5504 municipalities in the country as of 2004.