A China e o agronegócio brasileiro: topologia e uso do território pela COFCO International

Abstract

In 2014, the establishment of COFCO International, resulting from the acquisition of Nidera and Noble Agri, represented a strategic requalification of the Chinese state-owned COFCO Group within the international agricultural commodities market. The new trading company assumed a central geoeconomic role for the socialist-oriented state by increasing China’s control over supply chains of food and agricultural raw materials. It was in this context that the Chinese state-owned enterprise began operating in Brazil, an important producer and exporter of these goods. In light of this, and given the centrality of agriculture and food security in the contemporary world, this study aimed to analyze the actions and the corporate topology of COFCO Intl. within Brazilian territory, seeking to understand, from this concrete case, Brazil–China relations in the sphere of contemporary agribusiness. The methodology involved surveying, analyzing, and mapping, at the national scale, the registration data linked to the corporation in the public entities responsible for corporate registration in Brazil, from which it was possible to assess the company’s topology and reconstruct the spatiotemporal evolution of its establishments (headquarters and branches), their respective economic activities, and their positions within COFCO’s organizational structure. The analysis, grounded in the concepts of productive spatial circuits and spatial cooperation circles, made it possible to associate each subsidiary with a productive circuit (cotton, coffee, soy/sugarcane) and to identify their movement systems and the territorial hierarchy of the places mobilized by the company. Wholesale soybean trade proved central to the company, with lesser prominence for coffee and cotton, although all are directly connected to Chinese demand and Brazilian productivity, while sugar-energy operations remain limited to inherited assets. The corporation’s expansion into the Matopiba and Centro-Oeste regions, particularly Mato Grosso, is driven by soybeans and accompanies the expansion of Brazilian agricultural frontiers, whereas the other segments activate spaces marked by specialization, generally municipalities with significant production within each circuit. Finally, it is concluded that, given the actions and corporate topology of COFCO Intl., Brazil fails to take advantage of the potential of Sino–Brazilian relations, maintaining its position as a primary-exporting country by refraining from articulating a national development project capable of engaging with the new dynamics introduced by China in the global order.