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| Author(s): |
Elisa Pinheiro de Freitas
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: | 2013-03-21 |
| Examining board members: |
Rosa Ester Rossini;
Wanderley Messias da Costa;
Denise de Souza Elias;
Matheus Hoffmann Pfrimer;
Margarida Maria de Araújo Abreu Vilar de Queirós do Vale
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| Advisor: | Rosa Ester Rossini |
| Abstract | |
Brazil stands out among the group of countries, such as one that engendered and consolidated the use of alternative energy sources to fossil fuels, such as biofuels. The condition of world player of ethanol, biofuel made from sugar cane, was achieved by the country as a result of significant financial contributions granted by State to the sugarcane sector since the late nineteenth century and especially during the 1970s through the National Alcohol Program (PNA) whose goal was to reduce the country\'s dependence on imported oil. In a period that is characterized, among other things, by a global race for food and new sources of clean energy to meet the growing global demand, Brazil is emerging on the international scene as the country that has a unique situation, since the its vast territory, could supposedly reconciling the production of food and raw materials for the generation of biofuels (ethanol and biodiesel). We investigated, therefore, the simultaneous occurrence of the following phenomena: the intensification of land purchases by foreigners in Brazil (for the production of agricultural commodities, raw materials for biofuels and to serve as a store of value) and questioning of political and economic agents supra regarding the sustainability of biofuels, by understanding that the cultivation of raw materials aimed at the production process of ethanol and biodiesel, can compromise the supply of farm products of first necessity, which would lead to higher prices and would increase the number of hungry people in the world. The objective of this study was therefore to understand the political actions of the Brazilian state in the regulation of the territory for the production of alternative energy resources. These actions were and are conditioned external forces (transnational corporations, territorial states and other institutions supra) and internal forces (the different interests of social groups that make up the nation). Still, they are printed in the Brazilian territory, different socio-spatial dynamics whose results have been the expansion of sugarcane plantations on the Cerrado region and the displacement of cattle ranching to the Amazon biome. It should be noted that we try to understand the actions of the Brazilian state entered into historical and geographical contexts to which we call geopolitical orders. In each of these geopolitical orders, the Brazilian state was articulated to the world economy. Thus, although the actions of the Brazilian state have been controversial and ambiguous with respect to alternative energy resources, one can not ignore that they have not had major role in the consolidation of a cleaner energy matrix. This fact places Brazil as a major actor in international forums on sustainable development. Nevertheless, the Brazilian sugarcane sector has become more concentrated, oligopolistic and stateless. And the concentration of land by transnational corporations that operate in biofuels has been one of the factors that contribute to that Brazil still has a vulnerable food security. (AU) | |
| FAPESP's process: | 10/02738-9 - Territory, biofuel and power: the political action of Brazilian State in process of territorial regulation for the produce of alternate energetic resources |
| Grantee: | Elisa Pinheiro de Freitas |
| Support Opportunities: | Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate |