Pathways of Mato Grosso’s development
Pedro Pereira Borges1*, Heitor Romero Marques2 and Josemar de Campos Maciel3
1Graduated in Pedagogy and Philosophy, Universidade Católica Dom Bosco, Brazil
2Bachelor of Science and Pedagogy, Specialist in History and Philosophy of Education, Brazil
3Bachelor of Philosophy, Bachelor of Theology, Brazil
Submission: April 05, 2019; Published: April 17, 2019
*Corresponding author: Pedro Pereira Borges, Graduated in Pedagogy and Philosophy, bachelor’s in theology, Universidade Católica Dom Bosco, Avenida Manoel Ferreira, 35, Bairro Santo Antonio, Campo Grande-MS-79100-330, Brazil
How to cite this article: Pedro P B, Heitor R M, Josemar C M. Pathways of Mato Grosso’s development. Agri Res& Tech: Open Access J. 2019; 21(2): 556157. DOI: 10.19080/ARTOAJ.2019.21.556157
Abstract
The present study, through a bibliographical review, aims to describe the paths of the development of Mato Grosso in the Brazilian Center-West region. Such paths imply processes of long dates, even taking up periods near the discovery of Brazil. Moments such as the coming of the Portuguese Royal Family to Brazil (1809), the Brazilian Independence (1822), the Paraguayan War (1864-1870), the Proclamation of the Republic (1889) played a very important role in the advance towards the Brazilian West. An important milestone was the division of the then State of Mato Grosso, with the creation of Mato Grosso do Sul. Concurrently, the creation of Sudeco, Polocentro and Prodecer exerted enormous influence. Mato Grosso has been outstanding in the agricultural production and leading ranking in several products.
Keywords: March to the Brazilian West; Cerrado; Ranking in agricultural production; Mato Grosso
Introduction
Brazil once had been considered the barn of the world and this was a cause for joy. Since the beginning of colonization, each region of the country contributed with one type of agricultural product. This condition has not changed much in recent years, since 1970. The Brazilian Central West Region, alongside the South and Southeast Regions, has contributed significantly to Brazil’s prominent position in generating wealth, from agriculture. Much of this production is destined for domestic consumption, but much more for exports. Agricultural production has been the main economic support of Brazil, although criticisms have been expressed regarding the manufacture and industrialization of these same products, which are usually exported in natural.
As shown in the present study, Mato Grosso, as part of the Center-West Region, was the object of concern of the nation’s and local governments, including under international pressure, regarding land occupation and production of foodstuffs, mainly food. Not surprisingly, Brazilian economic formation has long been influenced by European countries and in the last century by the United States of America. The basic idea was that distant Brazilian lands - and also those of the rest of South America - should provide for raw materials in exchange for expensive manufactured and industrialized products, with their added value.
When addressing, then, the paths of the development of Mato Grosso, it is necessary to have as background the Brazilian History itself. This clearly reveals the delay of occupation of the West Region of the country, although it was subject to the International Treaties of that time. In addition, general events significantly influenced the March to the West, such as the Brazilian Independence in 1822, the Paraguayan War (1864-1870), the Proclamation of the Republic in 1889, and, in recent times, many initiatives were taken in different periods of government. Among these measures are the division of the State of Mato Grosso and the creation of Mato Grosso do Sul, the creation of the Central-West Development Authority (Sudeco), the Cerrado Development Program (Polocentro) and the Nipo Cooperation Program -Brazilian for the Development of Cerrados (Prodecer), among others. It is important to point out that the advance to the West also required the opening of federal roads (BRs) and state roads and raised numerous colonization projects, resulting in prosperous municipalities.
The Brazilian Territorial Unit
Since the arrival of the Portuguese Royal Family to Brazil in 1809, the Brazilian territory has known a unit that the Spanish territories could not maintain after the independence movements in relation to the old metropolis. Each Spanish region gained a specific population configuration, such as Argentina, Chile, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela and Bolivia, only to refer to the South American reality.
The Brazilian colonial period can be divided into two types, according to the type of government. The first was that of the Hereditary Captaincies and the second was that of Brazil as Vice Kingdom. According to Caldeira ([1] : 61), after realizing that it was not worth installing a government in Brazil, the Lisbon metropolis decided to create the system of Hereditary Captaincies, already tried in other colonies, such as Cape Verde, “The king granted part of his powers to entrepreneurs who performed government services on their own, in exchange for which they collected taxes from the beneficiaries, pocketing the difference in the form of profits.”
Gradually the economic organization of Brazil has gained other dimensions. The Portuguese government then decided to create what became known as General Government within the colonial regime. The General Government represented the overcoming of the feudal model and an update of the Portuguese presence in Brazilian lands. According to Caldeira ([1]:70), the General Government Rules established that [...] it was up to him (the Governor General) to execute orders. In the economic field, the main objective was the same as the donations of captaincies: to gather people and means capable of allowing the installation of productive activities that generate profit (in the business sphere) and taxes (in that of the government). Such economic objectives were not exactly those that characterized the monarch’s relations with the nobles in Portugal.
With the growth of the importance of Brazil for the Portuguese empire, as early as 1572 it was divided by Dom Sebastião into two administrative centers, one connected to Salvador, and the other connected to Rio de Janeiro. The territory under the tutelage of Salvador was formed by the portion that went from Ilhéus to the region of the former territory of Grão-Pará and Maranhão, which forms part of the current Northern Region of Brazil. The area protected by the administrative center of Rio de Janeiro was formed by the captaincies that bordered the Captaincy of Ilhéus to the South of Brazil [1].
External and internal factors of the Portuguese metropolis and also of the Brazilian colony itself made the Portuguese government rethink its presence in Brazil. Administrative divisions were no longer enough, with general governors loyal to the metropolis. European and American political movements were already beginning to influence the political and economic situation of Brazil [1]. This situation changed in 1774, all captaincies began to be administered by the viceroy of Brazil, whose capital was already Rio de Janeiro. This administrative reorganization of Brazil occurred at a decisive moment in the relations between the American and European colonies. The American Revolution began in 1775 and in 1777 the 13 Colonies declared their independence from the British crown. This revolution also inspired the French revolutionary ideals, culminating in the French Revolution of 1789. That Revolution marked the beginnings of the Modern Age in the Western world, and saw the emergence of the figure of Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821), who sought to expand the domain both for the east as well as the west of the European continent, having assumed the power like emperor in 1804 [1].
Napoleon Bonaparte imposed the continental blockade on the British Isles in 1806, and in this he moved with European geopolitics, compromising the relations of the Portuguese kingdom with the English government. The departure of the Portuguese royal family for the imminent invasion of Lisbon was the flight to Brazil, a fact that occurred in 1808, when the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarve were created. With this strategy of the Portuguese metropolitan government, a lapse of power was avoided, as occurred in the episodic known as União Ibérica (1581-1640), when, after the death of Dom Sebastião, Philip II of Spain, invaded Portugal and imposed the Spanish domain over Portuguese territory, until 1640, when the Avis dynasty was restored [1].
During this time, in Brazil the Portuguese crossed the boundaries of the Treaty of Tordesillas and gained the lands to the west, which currently make up the North and Central-West Regions, creating a Portuguese territory within the territory that would be Spanish. After the end of the Iberian Union, there remained questions about the lands conquered by the Portuguese, which were only resolved by the Treaty of Madrid in 1750, which led to the need for unification of the Brazilian administration in Rio de Janeiro in 1774 [1].
Due, therefore, to this external situation, “In the course of time, Brazil has been enriching despite all the fiscal drainage, and high up around the sovereign, those who dominated the writing and the most relevant information of the Empire began to consider alternatives to avoid the risk of a separation of the richer part “([1]: 224). Already in 1736, a high official of the Portuguese court had advised the crown to change the seat of government to Brazil. The reason for this, according to Caldeira ([1]: 224), was clear: “It is more comfortable and safe to be where one has what remains than where one expects what one lacks.”
At a time when the entire Brazilian production was exported to Lisbon and the European political situation was unhealthy for the maintenance of the Royal Family in Portugal, according to Caldeira [1], Dom João VI saw the need to decide between the Brazilian colony and the kingdom. So, he “forgot the moral defects of colonial dwellers, so often lamented in the documentation, and stayed with reality. Like so many of his plebeian subjects in previous centuries, he faced the Atlantic to try to make America “[1].
The arrival of the Royal Family in Brazil in 1808 was the last preparatory act for the Independence of Brazil, already with a unified territory, but still open to settlement. The creation of the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and Algarve has made possible the opening of the large settlement fronts, which had already occurred in a timid manner, especially with the discovery of mining regions such as those of Mato Grosso and Goiás at the beginning of the century XVIII, that culminated in the foundation of Cuiabá, in 1719, by Pascoal Moreira Cabral. In this period, however, the great centers open to economic growth lay on the coast. In any case,according to Caldeira ([1]:247), it showed that Brazil ceased to be an isolated space, the Brazilians were glimpsing the possibilities of a central government able to process the local interests. The centuries-old fiscal flow for the benefit of metropolitan agents was now a flow of public spending that eventually served the interests of the rich. This was the swift swallowing of the central government. The monarch realized that he had made a great strategic business, now that he lived in a place where the ghost of the time - the head of the monarchic ruler being separated from the body by the action of the guillotine - seemed to have been removed.
The arrival of the Portuguese Royal Family, in addition to opening the way for a more intense trade with other countries, especially England, paved the way for Brazil’s independence in 1822. According to Gomes ([2]:317) “No other period in Brazilian history has witnessed such profound, decisive and accelerated changes as the thirteen years in which the Portuguese court lived in Rio de Janeiro.” For him, “In a space of only a decade and a half, Brazil ceased to be a closed and backward colony to become an independent country.”
Gomes [2] still points out that one of the greatest merits of Dom João VI, when returning to Portugal in 1821, was the preservation of national unity. Repeating the historian José Honório Rodrigues, Gomes ([2]:322), affirms that the events that followed the return of Dom João VI to Portugal and generated the movements that led to independence “fortified Brazil, its conscience, its national sentiment, its unity, its indivisibility. “ With the Independence, there was also a need to think of Brazil for Brazilians, that is, to think of an internal and external policy with national features that would include the needs of the most inhabited and less inhabited regions of Brazil. The regions that most needed to be settled were the Midwest and the North.
The Brazilian March toward the West
The arrival of the Independence era did not bring facilities for the government of Dom Pedro I and his successor Dom Pedro II. According to Gomes ([2]:55) two situations had to be solved by the emperor: Brazil had remained united, while the old Spanish America had broken up in the civil wars of the beginning of the century. Regional revolts and separatist rebellions, which until the mid-nineteenth century had threatened territorial integrity, had been overcome with much sacrifice. As if that were not enough, the country had yet to experience another traumatic experience, the Paraguayan War, the greatest of all the armed conflicts in the history of South America.
Resolving the issue of internal revolts, the results of the Paraguayan War (1864-1870) forced the Brazilian government to rethink the question of geopolitics to the West. From there the south of Mato Grosso became a region militarized and in need of occupation. This occupation began by farmers who migrated to it with the purpose of raising livestock and producing jerky and leather for export. For the settlement of southern Mato Grosso, the soldiers who had fought in the Paraguayan War also contributed a great deal.
In any case, Mato Grosso became a center of attraction for cattle ranchers, rubber extractors, miners and subsistence farmers. The south of the State, besides the extensive cattle raising and the extraction of mate grass, counted on the port of Corumbá, that was one of the busiest of Brazil. However, the state government of Mato Grosso supported the Mate Laranjeira Company, which hampered the settlement process in the south. With this emerged the divisive movement that would occur in the 1970s. However, all these factors were decisive for receiving a significant movement of migration to the region.
The division is history of Mato Grosso followed a rite that was established throughout the 20th century. According to Gressler, Vasconcelos e Souza [3], in 1932, following the course of the Constitutionalist Revolution, the region joined São Paulo and the State of Maracaju was created for 32 days. With increasing foreign land pressure from both Germany and Japan, which proposed that small countries with large economic movements should have rights over territories of large countries with small economic movements, in 1943, Mato Grosso, which had a territory that was formed by the present states of Mato Grosso, Rondônia and Mato Grosso do Sul, had been divided to form the Territory of Guaporé, present State of Rondônia, and the Territory of Ponta Porã, by the Decree-Law no. 5.812, of the government of Getúlio Vargas, situation which was reversed in 1946, when it was reincorporated by Mato Grosso.
It was the external geopolitical issue that led the federal government to rethink Brazil’s settlement policy. According to Bresser Pereira ([4]: 11), within the perspective of developmentalism, emerging countries, such as Brazil, they needed to give economic development a deliberate character, which involved the consensual formulation of a national development strategy. A strategy in which the nation has become the great agent of economic development, the state, the instrument for this purpose, and industrial entrepreneurs, politically associated with public technobureaucracy and workers, who are responsible for investment.
In addition, the Brazilian government has given a strong commitment to occupy the vast territories of the Central-West Region with a low population density. Although it was a united country under a single flag, Brazil still lacked integration between the regions. In the past, the settlement movement had been the search for gold, followed by the extraction of rubber and, later, the production of coffee, especially in São Paulo [3].
External pressures led the Getúlio Vargas government to make viable agricultural colonies in southern Mato Grosso, as well as creating a foundation to explore the Central-West region of Brazil, especially the confluence zone between Goiás, Mato Grosso and southern Pará. In 1943, the Central Brazil Foundation was created, whose result was the exploration that went from Aragarças in Goiás, passing through the east of Mato Grosso until arriving at Marabá, in Pará, with the organization of an expedition that became known as Expedição Roncador-Xingu. The purpose of the expedition was to discover ores, which would later be sold in particular to the United States [3].
As a result of this expedition, and with Brazil taking significant steps in the industrialization and production of oil, the economic movement known as developmentalist came into the picture. In addition to Getúlio Vargas, who ruled Brazil between 1930 and 1945 and between 1950 and 1954, Juscelino Kubistchek also posed the question of development among the public policies of the federal government. Juscelino Kubistchek de Oliveira, whose government took place between 1956 and 1960, realizing the potential of the interior of Brazil, transferred the federal capital from Rio de Janeiro to Brasília, on April 21, 1960.
This event took place within a project that also foreseen the integration between the regions of Brazil. The Northeast had a foundation, the Northeast Development Super intendency (SUDENE), since 1963, which worked on a development plan for the region and its integration with the national economy. The Central-West Region, with a small population density, gained a superintendence in 1967. The Super intendency for the Development of the Central-West was known as SUDECO.
In the 1960s, the two largest urban centers in Mato Grosso were, respectively, Campo Grande, the current capital of Mato Grosso do Sul, and Cuiabá, the old capital of Mato Grosso. The south of Mato Grosso was better situated, because it had railroads that linked its territory to the port of Santos and Mato Grosso was a territory uninhabited and open to exploration.
In any case, the geopolitical question led the Brazilian government to expand its dominion over the savannah and the Amazonian forest are the predominant biomes in the region. This domain, besides the integration of the region with the other Brazilian regions, also aimed to integrate the Center-West and the North Region of Brazil into the international market, through the exploitation of agricultural land especially the Cerrado. One of the actions that collaborated to process the development of the region was the division of Mato Grosso in 1977 to create the State of Mato Grosso do Sul. With this the spaces for the operationalization of development policies gained a specific delimitation.
The Paths of Development Alongside the Roads
In order to strengthen this policy, the colonization frontiers of the State of Mato Grosso were opened along the existing highways, especially the BR-364, which links Brasília, passing through Goiás until reaching Bolivia, and in Mato Grosso benefited two specific cities, namely Rondonopolis and Cuiabá. Secondly, new frontiers of colonization were opened along the BR-163, which cuts the State of Mato Grosso towards the North Region, to reach Santarém, in Pará. In the late 1960s, the integration of Mato Grosso with Brasília and São Paulo being processed, with the pavement of BR- 364 and BR-163, respectively.
Parallel to the creation of these colonization corridors, the federal government created some programs that were decisive to facilitate the displacement of migrants from the South Region of Brazil to Mato Grosso. Among these programs are the Brazil- Brazil Cooperation Program for the Development of Cerrados (PRODECER) [5], created in 1974, to solve the problem of the US embargo on the export of soybeans from the United States to Japan. to supply the Japanese market with soya bean produced in the Cerrado. In addition to this program, another was created in 1981 under the name of the Cerrado Development Program (POLOCENTRO) [6], Decree No. 75,320, of January 29, 1975, with an area of activity covering the states of Mato Grosso, Mato Grosso do Sul , Goiás, in the Central-West Region, and Minas Gerais, in the Southeast, which had the Cerrado in common.
There are other programs that were also decisive for the exploration of the Cerrado and the Brazilian Amazon. It is worth mentioning here the Integrated Development Program of the Northwest of Brazil (POLONOROESTE) [7], created by Decree 86.029, of May 27, 1981, to serve the rest of the highway BR-364, from Cuiabá to Porto Velho. The area covered by this program was the northwest region of the State of Mato Grosso, comprising the municipalities of Cuiabá, Várzeas Grande, Nossa Senhora do Livramento, Poconé, Cáceres, Mirassol d’Oeste, Barra do Bugres, Tangará da Serra, Vila Bela da Holy Trinity, the western part of the Roosevelt River, in the Municipality of Aripuanã, and the present State of Rondônia (Table 1).
The objectives of the development programs for the Cerrado region follow a space occupation project. What was at stake was the appropriation of the territory from a geopolitical and economic perspective that, according to Moraes [8], at that moment as the background the organization of a mode of production for the space according to the logic of a mode of production capitalist. During this period, the main investor in the region was the federal government, which made possible the financing of rural credit and the financing of technical support infrastructure, through the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa) and the Rural Research, Assistance and Extension Company (Empaer).
Among the aspects that can be highlighted are the integration of the region to the rest of the country and the references to the development of the region, the absorption of local populations in the development process and the sustainability issue. It was in the operationalization of these objectives that, alongside the older cities of Mato Grosso, such as Diamantino, Rosario West, Caceres, Nobres, among others, emerged cities such as Alta Floresta, Sinop, Sorriso, Lucas do Rio Verde, Sapezal, Campos de Júlio, Matupá along the spike that went from Cuiabá to the border as State of Pará.
Agricultural production, financed in the 1970s and 1980s by the federal government, allowed the increase of the region’s income and its insertion in the international market through the export of grains and the settlement of the migrants from the Southern Region along the BR-163. Along the BR-158, a new agricultural production zone was opened, which gave rise to Nova Xavantina, Campinápolis, Água Boa, Ribeirão Cascalheira, Canabrava the North and Vila Rica.
According to IBGE [9], the Cerrado is a Brazilian biome that originally occupies a territory of 2 million km2, being part of the territories of Rondônia, Tocantins and Pará, in the North Region, Mato Grosso, Mato Grosso do Sul and Goiás, in the Central-West Region, Minas Gerais and São Paulo, in the Southeast Region, and Maranhão, Piauí and Bahia, in the Northeast Region.
This biome became decisive in the insertion of Brazil in the consumer market of agricultural products, besides being a strategic territory in the international geopolitics of Brazil. Its occupation and exploitation for agricultural purposes was the result of the federal government’s effort to internalize development and occupy a territory with low demographic density, which could become the object of greed from other countries for its non-occupation.
According to Revista Época [10], between 2000 and 2016, the use of Cerrado land for agriculture increased from 7.4 million hectares to 20.5 million hectares, not counting the area devoted to sugarcane of sugar, which occupies 2.7 million hectares. On the other hand, the area destined to the livestock that in the year of 2000 was of 76 million hectares in the year of 2016 happened to be of 90 million hectares.
The occupation of the Cerrado to the farm obeyed criteria well defined by the Brazilian government. The objectives of PRODECER make clear these objectives, which were, first of all, to stimulate the increase of food production. This objective was reached, but established as priority soybean cultivation, transforming the Cerrado into a monoculture territory of this product. Secondly, contribute to the country’s regional development. With regard to this objective, the region achieved a significant economic growth, which placed it at a substantial level in the international market, but not all municipalities followed the process of exploration of the Cerrado. Thirdly, the goal of increasing food supply in the world has been achieved, but it is still concentrated on the relationship with Japan and China, in short. Finally, with regard to the objective of developing the Cerrado region, the Cerrado region showed Brazilians that this region was not a region unfit for agriculture, but it became an important instrument of power in the international relations of Brazil.
If, for example, soybean production in Brazil is taken into account, according to EMBRAPA Soybean [11], it will reach 113.923 million tons in the 2017/2018 harvest, in a planted area of 33.890 million hectares. The State of Mato Grosso will contribute to this production with 30.514 million tons, using a planted area of 9.323 million hectares and a productivity of 3,273kg/ha.
The second program aimed at the development of the Cerrado, the POLOCENTRO [6], aimed at promoting two dimensions of the territory, that is, the development and modernization of the agricultural activities of specific territories of the Cerrado, that is, the Midwest and the West of the State of Minas Gerais. What is different about PRODECER is the term “rational”, relative to the question of the occupation of some areas. In a broad sense, this makes sense, because the Cerrado region is the source of springs of water courses that are distributed to the north and south of Brazil. The irrational occupation of the territory can lead to the destruction of the springs and, consequently, the shortage of several Brazilian regions [6].
The POLOCENTRO [6] was the program that began to address the issue of the rational use of Cerrado. POLONOROESTE [7] established among its objectives a concern with the integration, the insertion of the populations of other regions that migrated to the territory of its scope in the local economy, besides promoting the increase of the income, through the production, of the local population. As it was a border region with Bolivia and the BR-364, between Cuiabá and Porto Velho, the program aimed to reduce development disparities in the region and between the North and Central-West regions, within the process of integration with the rest of Brazil [6].
POLONOROESTE [7] also placed among its objectives the question of sustainability, because among the municipalities of its scope were municipalities that were part of the biome of Pantanal and also territories inhabited by indigenous people. The fifth objective of the program addressed the issue of production in harmony with the preservation of the ecological system and indigenous peoples.
Three are the issues that stand out from this history. The first is that the occupation of the lands of Mato Grosso was the result of an international geopolitical pressure. The internalization of the federal capital from Rio de Janeiro to Brasília became a decisive milestone in this process. The Brazilian government’s response was to respond to this pressure by encouraging migration to the region and, at the same time, inserting it into the international market. In order to do this, it had to invest in programs to promote migration and the production of agricultural products that would strengthen the Brazilian trade balance from the 1980s. Still in relation to this policy, the government had to invest in the interconnection between the Central Region -Oeste and other regions of Brazil. In view of this it constructed highways that took the production directly to the ports specialized in the export of grains, mainly Santos and Paranaguá.
The second issue was the provision of federal resources to operationalize the projects for the implementation of modern agriculture in the Cerrado. Banco do Brasil was the bank that most made available resources to farmers. The third is that as much as international geopolitics pressed for the occupation of the uninhabited regions of western and northern Brazil, the projects had the decisive support of foreign governments, especially Japan.
The Passage of Government’s Investment for Private Investment
By leveraging the occupation of the state of Mato Grosso during the 1970s to the first decade of the twenty-first century, through the creation of an agribusiness-based economic system, the Brazilian government paved the way for the state government and the entrepreneurs to take over the region’s development process.
The agricultural boundaries created along the BR-364 highways, in the south, in the territory of Mato Grosso from Alto Araguaia, to the east, passing through Rondonópolis and Cuiabá, initially, and later, along the BR-163, from Cuiabá to the border with Pará, which led to the emergence of several urban nuclei, joined the settlement of the 1940s, along the BR-158. However, the region between BRs-163 and 158 was still unexplored.
While the urban nuclei formed in the south-north direction of Mato Grosso, to the east, from Barra do Garças to the border with Pará, and in the Central-West region, from Cuiabá to the border with Pará, a gap remained between Rondonópolis and the northern region of the state. The counterbalance in this process of occupation was the settlement of the region Campo Verde and Primavera do Leste. The latter located between the two former diamond provinces of Poxoréu and Paranatinga.
The agricultural exploration of part of the Cerrado region of Poxoréu and Primavera do Leste, between Primavera do Leste and Paranatinga, caused a movement towards the north, along the MT- 130 highway, which connects, by asphalt, the cities of Rondonópolis to Paranatinga. Hence the pressure for the occupation to the north of Paranatinga, while the federal government invested in the link between Lucas do Rio Verde and Tocantins, building the BR-242 and opening the possibility of building a rail link between the region and the North railroad -Sul, to facilitate the export of agricultural products from Mato Grosso.
Thus, the possibility of expanding the Cerrado forest from the city of Paranatinga was also opened. As part of the process of occupation of this territory, the possibility of the settlement of Santiago do Norte, a project financed by agribusiness entrepreneurs, joined the BR-242, passing through Paranatinga, Primavera do Leste and Poxoréu, until arriving in Rondonópolis, a city that was born to connect the north of Mato Grosso with the rest of the Central-West Region, with the North Region, especially Pará and Tocantins, and the rest of the Central-South Region of Brazil.
The Diversity of Mato Grosso’s Agricultural Production
The production of agribusiness in the Cerrado, and that was gradually advancing on the edges of the Amazon forest in Mato Grosso gained prominence in the production of grains especially for exports. In a recent study, dated 2016, on Agribusiness projections for the period from 2015/2016 to 2025/2026, the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply (MAPA) [12] presented data on current and future production for the whole of Brazil. In relation to Mato Grosso, the main crops currently highlighted are soybean and maize, as well as other products for export such as beef, poultry and pork.
Table 2 shows the diversity of agricultural production in Mato Grosso. This production was achieved thanks to a series of actions in which important government agencies and products were involved in general. As for cotton, along with Mato Grosso, the other state that produces the most is Bahia, 347 thousand tons, accounting for 23.4% of the national production. As far as soybeans are concerned, their production is more widespread throughout Brazil, with Paraná accounting for 17.9% of the Brazilian production, and Rio Grande do Sul for 16.9% [12].
In relation to other products, such as maize, the State of Mato Grosso became the first national producer in 2016, followed by Paraná, which accounts for 21.4% of the national production and for Mato Grosso do Sul, with 10, 6% of total production in Brazil. As for beans, Mato Grosso produced 12.9% of this grain in 2016, ranking third in the national ranking, behind the State of Paraná, which ranked first, with 21.4%, and the State of Minas Gerais, which accounted for 16.8% of the national production, occupying the third place. Finally, in 2016, production in Mato Grosso ranked fourth, representing 4.5% of national production, behind the state of Rio Grande do Sul, which accounted for 69.9% , and it ranked first in the State of Santa Catarina, which accounted for 9.4%, and was in second place, and the State of Goiás, which accounted for 5.4% and ranked third in the Brazilian production ranking.
Together with these agricultural products, the State of Mato Grosso, in 2016, had also increased its participation in the ranking of national production in beef production, when it slaughtered 4,540,805 cattle, accounting for 14.8% of the national supply for domestic consumption and exports. The MAPA projections on the exploration of land for agribusiness, between 2015/2016 and 2025/2026, in the State of Mato Grosso are of the order foreseen in Table 3. Soybean and sugar cane were taken for the purpose of this work.
Currently soy bean is one of the products that leverage the Brazilian trade balance. According to World in data [13], in 2014, Brazil produced 2.87 tons per hectare. In this respect it lost only to the United States, which produced 3.2 tons in equal space. The State of Mato Grosso, according to MAPA [12], will produce, in the 2018/2019 harvest, 2.77 tons per hectare. Compared with Argentina’s soybean production of 53 million tons in 2018, with a production of 31.23 million tons in the same period, the State of Mato Grosso currently produces the equivalent of 58.92% of production total of platinum country. As for yield, the total area planted in Argentina amounts to a total of 16,753 million hectares, while Mato Grosso has a planted area of 12,217 million hectares.
This diversity of production, which is not restricted to agriculture and livestock, meant that in 2014, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Mato Grosso was in the order of R $90.811 billion, according to the Planning Secretariat of Mato Grosso (SEPLANMT) [14], with agriculture accounting for R $19.080 billion, industry with 15.825 billion and services with R $55.906 billion. The participation of agribusiness in the production of riches of Mato Grosso was of the order of 21.0%. Within this process, Mato Grosso contributed with 1.8% of the total national production, occupying the 14th among the Brazilian states.
The growth of agricultural production in Mato Grosso led the State to manufacture part of its production. This means that agriculture has led to an industrialization process, with processed products in the State accounting for 17.4% of the state’s production.
All this aggregate of structural changes processed in the State over the last three decades have led Mato Grosso to have a GDP per capita R $32,894.96, equivalent in current terms to US $10,000 [9]. In national terms, this value leads the state to be the seventh in per capita income. The current GDP of Mato Grosso is in the order of R $107,418,000, in terms of Brazil is the 14th place.
Concluding Remarks
Although the present work does not have the purpose of conclusion it is possible to infer some considerations with greater assertiveness, notably as to the process that has been occurring for the development of Mato Grosso. As it was seen in the argumentative line the advance and the occupation of the Brazilian West kills intimate relation with the own history of Brazil. If in the past the vast region was already the subject of dispute between Spaniards and Portuguese more recently aroused the interest of other European and Asian countries, in the latter case, mainly of Japan. The exploitation of the Cerrado for activities more oriented to agriculture than livestock brought with it a series of geopolitical and socio-economic transformations, notably due to the emergence of cities throughout the region. There are, of course, criticisms in this respect, as well as the fact that not all agricultural production is intended for food, as is the case of cotton and partly of soy.
It is undeniable that Mato Grosso has been the fulcrum of extremely high economic sustainability in Brazil, precisely from agribusiness, both to meet the country’s internal needs and to balance the balance of exports. Central government programs and initiatives have resulted in benefits in terms of financing agricultural production, as well as facilitating price policies in the sector. Another aspect to be considered is that of infrastructure, with federal and state roads opening that allow the access of implements and the flow of production, even if it still needs serious improvements.
References
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- Gressler Lori Alice, Vasconcelos Luiza Mello, Souza Zélia Peres (2005) História do Mato Grosso do Sul. São Paulo: FTD.
- Bresser-Pereira Luiz Carlos (2012) Estado desenvolvimentista, nacionalismo e liberalismo. p. 18.
- Ousada Neide Mayumi (2018) Publicación Carta Asiática. PRODECER: Projetos no Cerrado e dívidas agrícolas.
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- IBGE (2018) Setor de serviços varia -0,4% em fevereiro.
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- SEPLAN - Secretaria de Estado de Planejamento de Mato Grosso (2013) Contas Regionais - PIB de Mato Grosso - p. 24.