Cracking the nut of agribusiness and global food insecurity: In search of a critical agenda of research

2017

Geographical Review

This article investigates the spatial logic and different moments of place‐making during the expansion of Mato Grosso's agribusiness frontier, in the southern section of the Brazilian Amazon. The analysis is informed by three conceptual concerns: the tensions between representation and experience, between humanist and class‐based explanations, and between the intensity of place‐making and place‐framing. Empirical results from a qualitative case study (carried out between 2013–2015, when agribusiness was the undisputed locomotive of the Brazilian economy) demonstrate that socio‐spatial changes in the last four decades evolved due to the complementary pressures and controversies of displacement (particularly in the 1970s–1980s) and replacement (in the 1990s–2000s), which eventually resulted in the widespread sense of misplacement due to accumulated inequalities and entrenched forms of socioeconomic exclusion. The principal conclusion found that the places dominated by agribusiness in Mato Grosso evolved around a totalizing spatial strategy that undermined alternative forms of production and livelihoods that do not fit in the export‐oriented agricultural model.

Section: The Resulting Sense Of Displacementmentioning

confidence: 99%

Places of Agribusiness: Displacement, Replacement, and Misplacement in Mato Grosso, Brazil

2017

Geographical Review

“…Despite signs of progress and opulence, place-making in the Teles Pires continues to be in a state of great uncertainty and complex economic, technological and social constraints. One main source of instability is the fact that, because of the politico-economic crisis of the 1990s, the region was inserted too easily into the circuits of global agri-food markets and neoliberal economic reforms (Ioris 2015). Public and private life has been affected by those adjustments which, despite renovating the regional economy, reinforced the pattern of socio-ecological exploitation, vulnerability and political subordination to the main centres of power.…”

Section: The Resulting Sense Of Misplacementmentioning

confidence: 99%

Place-making at the frontier of Brazilian agribusiness

2016

GeoJournal

The intricacies of one of the most relevant agribusiness frontiers in the world today-the north of the State of Mato Grosso, in the southern section of the Amazon, Brazil-are considered through a critical examination of place-making. Vast areas of Amazon rainforest and savannah vegetation were converted there, since the 1970s, into places of intensive soybean farming, basically to fulfil exogenous demands for land and agriculture production. The present assessment goes beyond the configuration of new places at the agricultural frontier, and starts with a qualitative intellectual jump: from place-making on the frontier to place-making as an ontological frontier in itself. It means that, instead of merely studying the frontier as a constellation of interconnected places, we examine the politicised genesis of the emerging places and their trajectory under fierce socio-ecological disputes. The consideration of almost five decades of intense historic-geographical change reveals an intriguing dialectics of displacement (of previous socio-ecological systems, particularly affecting squatters and indigenous groups, in order to create opportunities for migrants and companies), replacement (of the majority of disadvantaged farmers and poor migrants, leading to land concentration, widespread financialisation and the decisive influence of transnational corporations) and misplacement (which is the synthesis of displacement and replacement, demonstrated by mounting risks and a pervasive sentiment of maelstrom). Overall, there was nothing inevitable in the process of rural and regional development, but the problems, conflicts and injustices that characterise its turbulent geographical trajectory were all more or less visible from the outset.

“…During our research it was possible to verify that agroneoliberalism is being applied in the localized context of farms and regions, but management, technologies and trade relations increasingly happen in accordance with globalized, transnational interactions and priorities. However, what is still missing in most available publications is a critical examination of the achievements, justification and failures of agro-neoliberalism at the geographical frontier of agribusiness (Ioris, 2015). Therefore, our final observation is that such complex interplay between general trends and place-specific interactions remains a fertile field of work and continues to demand appropriate multidisciplinary attention.…”

Section: The Advances and The Prospects Of Agro-neoliberalismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Encroachment and entrenchment of agro-neoliberalism in the Centre-West of Brazil

Journal of Rural Studies

2017

Self Cite

From being a net food importer in recent decades, Brazil is now considered a successful case of agricultural production and export. However, this image of triumph and efficiency helps to conceal growing socio-ecological impacts and mounting uneasiness. The complex and contradictory landscape of contemporary Brazilian agribusiness represent a relevant example of the advance of agro-neoliberalism, which is both an economic and technological process of agriculture modernization and intensification, in accordance to liberalizing pressures, and also a politico-ecological phenomenon centred on market-based solutions to old and new production, innovation and justification questions. Based on qualitative research and three fieldwork campaigns, the article discusses recent politico-economic adjustments particularly in the State of Mato Grosso, in the Centre-West region, which is fast becoming the main area of agribusiness activity in the country. Empirical results demonstrate that agro-neoliberalism has been promoted through inventive public-private associations not for the purpose of domestic food security, but primarily for capital accumulation and to support sectoral interests and macroeconomic strategies.