Efeitos da expansão do setor sucroenergético sobre a pecuária bovina: uma avaliação na região de Ituiutaba/MG

Abstract

The dissertation aimed to understand the processes related to the recent expansion of the sugar-energy sector and its territorial implications in a region traditionally focused on cattle ranching activities in the Geographical Microregion of Ituiutaba. Therefore, we opted for a periodization exercise to understand the genesis of the agricultural dynamics of the Ituiutaba’s region to the present day, highlighting the formation of cattle raising as a traditional activity in the region. In the current century, we have checked the strong expansion of the sugarenergy sector in the GMR of Ituiutaba, a fact that has resulted in territorial implications, such as the displacement of cattle ranching activities to other regions and states, the replacement of cattle ranching properties for sugar cane activities, but also the coexistence of these activities, which results in both positive and negative effects for ranchers. We evidenced cattle ranching, in general, developed with high technical employment, mainly in the recent period in the Ituiutaba region. Such performance of cattle ranching was provided by the presence of important agents of the sector in the GMR of Ituiutaba, mainly Nestlé and JBS, that demand new dynamics about cattle ranching practices, restructuring the activities. Thus, we identified in the study area that the development of cattle ranching activities that remain in the region is sustained, mainly, by the presence of seven agro-industrial agents, most of them setted in the second half of the 20th century. So, the continuity of these practices is guaranteed by such agents, practices related to the time when the region was essentially focused on the breeding of beef and dairy cattle.