Agronegócio globalizado e uso do território no contexto de financeirização: o Grupo Cosan e o setor sucroenergético brasileiro

Abstract

From the second half of the 20th century, structural and conjunctural changes caused deep transformations in global capitalism, with different implications for central and peripheral economies, which also occurred for Brazil as a whole. These transformations are the basis for understanding globalization, financialization and neoliberalism, variables that established new conditions for the uses of territory in Brazil, in different contexts. For the Brazilian sugar-energy sector (production of sugarcane products), these changes took place mainly after the year 2000, which was analyzed in this thesis, based on the dynamics of territory use carried out by the Cosan Group in the context of the sugar-energy production process, which with the significant insertion in the dynamics of financialized accumulation, began to be guided in large part, by the need for immediate appreciation of its assets to remunerate the capital invested. This valorization process was conditional on the territory itself, triggered for the expansion of its production process, which, in turn, was supported by the actions of the Brazilian State in directing public funds to the Group and to the sector as a whole. This situation was analyzed from public and private data related to the production process and the territorial expansion of the Cosan Group, with the objective of understanding how the financial valuation essentially depends on the dynamics of use of the territory. In the end, the analysis of the implications of this process, also understood from its socio-spatial dimension, indicate the homogenization of the territory and the landscape, the super-exploitation of work and the super-exploitation of natural resources, processes that demonstrate the limits resulting from the sector's growth, as it is established today.