Brasiliens Agrarfront: Landnahme, Inwertsetzung und Gewalt

Abstract

Abstract

The agricultural Frontier in Brazil: Illegal Acquisition of Land, Valorisation and rural Violence.

Today´s agricultural expansion in Brazil transforms, year after year, huge tracks of Amazonian rainforest and cerrado in pasture and arable land. Beef and soybeans for national and international markets are booming sectors of national and transnational agribusiness in Brazil. Large landowners and enterprises, migrating peasants, Indian people, and „traditional“ populations like rubber and nuts collectors are locked in a bitter and bloody fight for access to land. The article argues that the origins of the present-day rural conflicts, violence and illegal acquisition of public land can be traced back to the „conservative modernization“ of Brazilian agriculture since the forties of the last century. Already in the past, the special Brazilian model of „primitive accumulation“ dominated the agricultural frontiers in the South and Centre-West of Brazil. On the one hand, the monstrous concentration of private land and, on the other hand, the mass misery of mini-farmers are reproduced by the creation of modern latifundios in Amazonia. It is argued that social exclusion through private ownership of land which by no means can rationally be justified is not a solution, but the origin and permanent source of rural conflict and violence.