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| Author(s): |
Paul Clívilan Santos Firmino
Total Authors: 1
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| Document type: | Doctoral Thesis |
| Press: | São Paulo. |
| Institution: | Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH/SBD) |
| Defense date: | 2022-11-17 |
| Examining board members: |
Rosa Ester Rossini;
Antonio Alfredo Teles de Carvalho;
Armen Mamigonian;
Mateus de Almeida Prado Sampaio
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| Advisor: | Rosa Ester Rossini |
| Abstract | |
The technical-scientific revolution of the end of the 20th century and the advance of modernizations among rural activities have provided the constitution of a scientific, technical, computerized, and globalized agriculture. This globalized agriculture was inserted into the new world logic, subordinating technical systems and innovations to the global economy demands and agribusiness imperatives. The apprehension of the understanding of the technical-scientific-informational environment (SANTOS, [1996] 2008), became fundamental to its insertion in the countryside, expelling small producers, reducing manpower, and inserting logic established by big business and global markets in partnership with national states. This reality has contributed to the modernization of sugar-energy agribusinesses, as a way of guaranteeing space in the market and fitting into a more verticalized production process. Among such modernization processes one can highlight the following activities: innovations in soil preparation, planting, fertilization, irrigation, harvesting, and processing of final products; improving transport logistics; expansion of sugarcane activity to areas considered to be non-traditional; insertion of modern machinery and highly qualified labor versus masses of unemployed/underemployed and decrease in the average daily wage. The agro-industries in Alagoas have undergone several modernizations, emerging since the end of the 20th century as the main ones in the Northeast regarding sugarcane production. There, the East Mesoregion is currently ranked 1st in the Northeast and 13th in the country (IBGE, 2019). The 20th century was emblematic for the Alagoas sugarcane industries. In the second half of the last century, one can highlight the use of coastal boards. From the beginning of the 1990s onwards, the agrarian space in Alagoas started the crossroads to achieve the global market, with greater competitiveness among the plants, leading them to modernization at an accelerated pace. This modernization process was particularly stronger among the largest and most consolidated regions, such as Caeté, Coruripe, and Santo Antônio. In this perspective, the present thesis aims to analyze and discuss the technical-scientific-informational modernization of the sugarcane agroindustry in Alagoas, focusing on an investigation of the spaces of globalization from the new technical systems and the current innovation processes, bringing to light the land structure of the state and labor relations in the sector from 1990 to 2020. In order to do so, some concepts and categories were essential, such as: geographic space and socio-spatial training, technical-scientific-informational environment and globalization, technical systems and innovations, modernizations and agricultural transformations, agribusiness and sugarcane agro-industry, region and sub-region, monoculture and large estates, labor force, (un)employment/unemployment and gender issues, small and medium property, agriculture and subsistence economy, agrarian question and agrarian reform. The investigation had a theoretical framework based on a range of authors from Geography and related areas, with data and information from fieldwork and with documental research and on websites, such as IBGE, SINDAÇÚCAR, and RIDESA. Sugarcane farming continues to be the most profitable activity in Alagoas at the threshold of the 21st century, centralizing and concentrating production in a limited number of units. Thus, the discussion around the present theme becomes relevant in the face of the metamorphosis process that has been entering the countryside through the globalization process, given the infinity number of objects created to meet the needs of sugarcane plants to deal with the demands of competitiveness in the period here analyzed. Despite the modernization known by the Alagoas sugar-energy agroindustry, it is necessary to face some challenges that end up constituting obstacles to those plants which are not able to follow the pace of the modernization process, as well as to the society of Alagoas in general. Among these challenges one can highlight: the qualification and absorption of the labor that is replaced by innovations in sugarcane farming; the resolution of environmental problems such as the burning of sugarcane during the cutting season and the use of residues/rejects from the industrial process; the low degree of economic dynamism and little varied commerce in the cities located where this monoculture prevails; and the policies and incentives to diversify activities in/from rural through the distribution and diversified use of the land. (AU) | |
| FAPESP's process: | 17/22120-9 - Modernization of sugarcane agroindustry in the State of Alagoas: challenges and perspectives in the globalization period |
| Grantee: | Paul Clívilan Santos Firmino |
| Support Opportunities: | Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate |