HE EXPANSION OF MODERN AGRICULTURE IN THE EXPANDED REGION OF ARTICULATION OF BRASÍLIA: RECENT TRENDS

Abstract

In the actual moment of production of the space by capitalism, new ways of the spatial organization of production emerge, pointing to new possible relations between urban and metropolitan spaces and productive spaces. The recent process of expansion of modernized agricultural activities in neighbouring municipalities of Federal District has risen doubts about the relations of Brasilia, a tertiary metropolis, with the productive A Expansão da Agropecuária Moderna na Região Ampliada 329 sector in its space of infl uence. In this paper, the space considered is the Expanded Region of Articulation of Brasília, defi ned by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE). The objective is to analyse and map the more recent trends of the expansion of modern agriculture in the region selected for the study, situating this process around the metropolitan space of Brasilia. It has as a premise that this process is showing expansion with proximity from the metropolitan space of Brasilia, but keeping a concentrator trend, repeating what occurs in other spaces marked by the expansion of modern agriculture. The adopted methodology started, initially, from the historical reconstitution of the production of the regional space of Brasília since the implantation (or formation) and expansion of two processes: the expansion of the modern agriculture and the metropolitan expansion of Brasília. In a second moment, the paper analysed the data provided by the IBGE Agricultural Census 2017, identifying the main sectors in which tends to occur the most modernized agricultural activities and how these activities are distributed in the region studied. Results pointed to a trend of expansion of this activity in municipalities in the east of Federal District: beyond the cases of Paracatu and Unaí (stimulated by the Federal Government actions in the 1970s), there is an advance towards Cristalina (highlighted as the main grain producer), Luziânia and Buritis. The results also demonstrated important participation of the Federal District in the process (grain production and poultry farming). On the other hand, small municipalities in the northeast of Goias have shown some participation in the production of a cattle ranch, with a more dispersed pattern and few traces of modernization, this activity being fundamental in the historical formation of the region and remains as an economic base for the less modernized spaces. In this way, a contradiction was verifi ed, as Brasília has maintained its role as a tertiary metropolis, but has a participation, with parts of its territory, in the production of the regional modern agriculture. Besides, it is verifi ed that the process of expansion of modern agriculture is more concentrated than that suggested by the literature, not occurring as a cohesive axis, but presenting the formation of cores in specific spaces.