SOYBEAN’S FOOTPRINT IN AMAZONIA: PAST AND CURRENT TRENDS / TRAJETÓRIAS DA SOJA NA AMAZÔNIA: TENDÊNCIAS ANTERIORES E ATUAIS

A soja é a segunda mais importante commoditiy de exportação do Brazil, correspondendo a cerca de 10 por cento das exportações em 2014. Este crescimento é notável dado que há 30 anos atrás a produção brasileira era três vezes menor que a dos Estados Unidos, que até então dominava quase todo o mercado global. A ascensão do Brasil culminou em 2015, ocasião em que o país se tornou o maior exportador e produtor de soja do mundo. O sucesso do Brasil é resultado de uma longa jornada que envolveu reformas na política de exportação, oportunidades de mercado e crescimento da demanda global, especialmente da China. No entanto, paralelo ao crescimento das exportações, aumentou também a preocupação com relação aos seus impactos ambientais associados à proliferação da atividade dentro bioma amazônico. Este avanço sobre a maior Floresta tropical do mundo é também surpreendente porque a cultivo de soja até pouco tempo era limitado às regiões de clima temperado. Neste artigo eu analiso a trajetória do desenvolvimento da agricultura de soja no Brasil, como ela se deslocou para o norte e os impactos sociais e ambientais observados na região central da Amazônia.Palavras-chave: Soja, Amazônia, Brasi

From subsistence to financial asset: the appropriation of the Brazilian Cerrado lands as a resource

This article proposes a typology of the appropriation of Brazilian Cerrado lands as a resource—ranging from subsistence for local peoples, to the current attempt by institutional investors to transform the land into a financial asset—without disregarding its use as a source of power and accumulation by large capitalist farmers. A resource is considered as any product of a relationship mediated by appropriation of a specific natural material by a particular agent. Until 1970s, Cerrado lands were used almost exclusively as a means of subsistence by peasants and indigenous populations. Since then, under a violent expropriation process, land has become a resource for capitalist accumulation and patrimonialist power for large-scale immigrant farmers, with the expansion of the agricultural frontier. Within the context of land grabbing in the 21st century, the arrival of representatives of international financial capital has added to the complexity of the appropriation strategies in which Cerrado lands are considered financial assets. These different perspectives of using land as a resource has increased the number of conflicts and contradictions, with profound negative effects on peasant communities in agricultural frontier areas

Uneven development and the governance of agricultural commodity booms : the case of soybean in South America

Issues related to food security have long been closely tied to the dynamics of the global political economy. The latest price peak experienced in the commodities market (2007-2008) greatly affected agricultural commodities, creating significant imbalances in production and consumption. This research develops an interdisciplinary approach that links together issues of natural resource governance, development, and transformations in the global political economy to explore the ways in which countries of South America govern commodity booms. In other words, this thesis examines how these global dynamics affect the ways in which food-producing states manage the wealth produced during commodity booms and how this is wealth is subsequently distributed among different sectors of society. In South America, the recent commodity boom has led to an expansion of primary production oriented towards export markets, creating imbalances in their domestic productive structures. This thesis focuses on the production and trade of soybean in three countries of the Southern Cone: Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay. Following the boom, soybean production has come to dominate the agricultural sectors and overall exports of these countries, with some authors going as far as to dub this rapidly expanding industry the ‘Soybean Republic’. This research engages with cutting edge debates in International Political Economy, with a conceptual focus that draws from human geography and brings in space as both contingent and constituted by the changing productive and trade dynamics. By looking at the development of fixed infrastructure and dynamics of capital mobility, this research explores the patterns of uneven development that emerge from the expansion of the soybean complex, as well as the capacity of the Argentine, Brazilian, and Paraguayan states to govern the distribution of the profits emanating from it

Analysing the Brazilian Sugarcane Agroecological Zoning: Is This Government Policy Capable of Avoiding Adverse Effects from Land-Use Change?

There are doubts about the reliability of so-called biofuels to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and conserve biodiversity. Brazil is the largest producer of sugarcane ethanol in the world. This thesis analyses the extent to which the Brazilian Sugarcane Agroecological Zoning (ZAE Cana), a federal policy developed in 2009, can contribute to reducing, or avoiding, adverse environmental impacts in terms of GHG emissions and biodiversity degradation. It takes into account both direct and indirect effects of land-use change (LUC) caused by the expansion of sugarcane in Brazil. Because sugarcane expansion has primarily displaced areas of pasture, most of the literature reviewed, and information from the participants, are optimistic in regard to GHG emissions due to direct LUC. But the expansion of sugarcane has caused biodiversity impacts and it may be aggravated in the near future. Despite increase in agricultural productivity, studies contend that indirect LUC caused by the increase in sugarcane ethanol production in Brazil is expected to take place. Qualitative face-to-face, semi-structured interviews were undertaken with experts representing private institutions, the Brazilian government, the sugarcane industry association and the NGO WWF-Brazil. The key stakeholders were chosen to elicit knowledge from a range of respondents with experience of the production of Brazilian sugarcane ethanol. The interviews were also used to investigate the importance of, and motivations to create, ZAE Cana. ZAE Cana has shortcomings and there is significant impact on LUC caused by other agricultural activities. Monitoring and enforcement of specific legal frameworks are important. Agroecological zonings for other activities such as pasture, soybeans and corn should also be developed to control detrimental indirect LUC

Development Banks from the BRICS

The BRIC acronym was created at the beginning of the 2000s to represent a group of four fast-growing economies – Brazil, Russia, India and China – and was changed to BRICS in December 2010 with the inclusion of South Africa. At its fifth annual summit in Durban at the end of March 2013, the group announced the future establishment of a New Development Bank (NDB) to meet infrastructure investment needs in the developing world. At their sixth annual summit in Fortaleza the following year (July 2014), the BRICS finally agreed on the broader arrangements for the bank – an initial US$50bn fund – and coupled this achievement with the launch of the Contingency Reserve Arrangement (CRA) – US$100bn to be accessed to alleviate members’ financial difficulties (US$41bn from China, US$5bn from South Africa and US$18bn from each of the others). The Bank will start lending in 2016. Despite this achievement, commentators estimate that even if the NDB eventually increases its capital to US$100bn with injections from non-BRICS states and institutions (up to a maximum capital share from non-BRICS countries of 45 per cent), most infrastructure needs in the developing world will remain unmet. Compared to the World Bank and Asian Development Bank – whose subscribed capital is US$223bn and US$162bn respectively – the additional capital available from the NDB is too small to fill the financing gap (Spratt 2014). According to World Bank estimates, South Asia alone requires US$2.5tn over the next ten years, while overall the BRICS states are estimated to need a total of more than US$4.5tn over the next five years for infrastructure development. In consideration of the limited amount of lending that the NDB may provide, the bank may create ‘special funds’ – i.e. separately funded and managed mechanisms – designed to get round this capital constraint (Spratt 2014).UK Department for International Developmen

SDGs, Transformation, and Quality Growth

This is an Open Access book. The primary objective of this book is to seek out insights into the concept of high-quality growth (HQG). It explores the essential attributes of HQG, such as inclusiveness, sustainability, and resilience, as well as its relationship with transformation, by drawing principally on illustrative cases and instances of international cooperation. The United Nations document on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) states that “We resolve to create conditions for sustainable, inclusive and sustained economic growth, shared prosperity and decent work for all.” As such, the concept of quality growth is inherent in many aspects of the SDGs. A similar approach can be seen in the Development Cooperation Charter announced by the Japanese government in 2015. According to the Charter, one of the most important challenges of development is quality growth and the reduction of poverty achieved through such growth. The approach in the Charter emphasizes inclusiveness, sustainability, and resilience. This volume is a pioneering study on quality growth as well as its relationship with SDGs and transformation. Comprehensive studies on quality growth are very few. The case study approach distinguishes the present volume from some previous literature that discussed quality growth within the framework of general policy. Instead, in this book, concrete cases and experiences provide insights into hands-on “ingredients”. Through the case studies, it can be seen more clearly that transformation and quality growth are phenomena that do not occur automatically but, rather, ones that require specific, properly designed strategies and approaches. Another unique feature of this book is that it aims to make explicit some of the consistent, but implicit, principles of Japan’s international cooperation

Hinterlands of the Green Transition. Atacama, lithium and the extended geographies of the zero-emission city

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