Brazil's ambitions as a competitor in global markets have led to an aggressive policy of investment in new industrial and export agriculture. In the region of central Brazil which I discuss in this paper, capitalist farmers have converted huge amounts of land in former frontier regions to the production of soybeans, largely for Asian and European markets. This integration to the world economy is not automatic or unchallenged, however. The conversion to export-oriented agriculture has created the contradictory demand for a flexible yet dependable and skilled work force to operate and care for costly farm machinery and to conform to the pace and quality of world-class production. I show that urban-based institutions and households in agricultural regions are challenging the crossover to international markets by offering agricultural workers alternative sources of income and political power. Agricultural entrepreneurs in Brazil are being forced to yield many concessions to the families of day laborers and semipermanent wage workers in order to guarantee a supply of predictable and reliable labor.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
AgarwalB, 1990, “Social security and the family: coping with seasonality and calamity in rural India”Journal of Peasant Studies17341–412
2.
AgliettaM, 1979Theory of Capitalist Regulation: The US Experience (New Left Books, London)
3.
America's Watch, 1992The Struggle for Land in Brazil: Rural Violence Continues (America's Watch, New York)
4.
Anonymous, 1990, “Como se comprar um sitio sem se arrepender”Guia Rural4(9) 67–70
5.
ArceAMarsdenT, 1993, “The social construction of international food: a new research agenda”Economic Geography69293–311
6.
ArizpeL, 1981, “Relay migration and the survival of the peasant household”, in Why People Move: Comparative Perspectives on the Dynamics of Internal Migration (UNESCO, Paris) pp 187–210
7.
BardhanP, 1989, “Alternative approaches to the theory of institutions in economic development”, in The Economic Theory of Agrarian Institutions Ed. BardhanP (Clarendon Press, Oxford) pp 3–18
8.
BargerW KRezaE M, 1994The Farm Labor Movement in the Midwest: Social Change and Adaptation among Migrant Farmworkers (University of Texas Press, Austin, TX)
9.
BarhamBClarkMKatzEShurmanR, 1992, “Nontraditional agricultural exports in Latin America”Latin American Research Review27(2) 3–42
10.
BaxterVMannS, 1992, “The survival and revival of non-wage labour in a global economy”Sociologia Ruralis32(2/3) 231–247
11.
BerryS, 1993No Condition is Permanent: The Social Dynamics of Agrarian Change in Sub-Saharan Africa (University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, WI)
12.
BluestoneBHarrisonB, 1982The Deindustrialization of America (Basic Books, New York)
13.
BradshawS, 1995, “Female-headed households in Honduras”Third World Planning Review17(2) 117–131
14.
BrassT, 1989, “Unfree labour and capitalist restructuring in the agrarian sector: Peru and India”Journal of Peasant Studies1450–77
15.
BremanJ, 1990, “‘Even dogs are better of’: the ongoing battle between capital and labour in the cane-fields of Gujarat”Journal of Peasant Studies17546–608
CamargoJ M, 1994, “Desigualdade e pobreza no Brasil”paper presented at “Forum: Brasil 1995”, Rio de Janeiro; copy available from the author, Pontificio Universidade Católica, Rio de Janeiro
18.
CarneyJ, 1994, “Contracting a food staple in The Gambia”, in Living Under Contract: Contract Farming and Agrarian Transformation in Sub-Saharan Africa Eds LittleP DWattsM J (University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, WI) pp 167–187
19.
CEDEPLAR, 1987, “Transformações recentes do setor agropecuário brasileiro: desafios tecnológicos, dinâmica espacial e a fronteira do Centro-Oeste”, Centro de Desenvolvimento e Planejamento Regional, Belo Horizonte
20.
ChaseJ R, 1993Urbanization on the Grain Belt of Central Brazil: The Case of Rio Verde, GoiásPhD dissertation, Department of Urban Planning, University of California, Los Angeles
21.
ChristophersonS, 1989, “Flexibility in the US service economy and the emerging spatial division of labor”Transactions of the Institute of British Geography, New Series14131–143
22.
ChristophersonS, 1991, “Explaining the new spatial inequality: the changing role of the state and economic capacities”, paper presented at the annual meeting of the Association of American Geographers, Miami, April, 1991; copy available from the author, Department of Geography, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY
23.
ClappR A, 1994, “The moral economy of the contract”, in Living Under Contract: Contract Farming and Agrarian Transformation in Sub-Saharan Africa Eds LittleP DWattsM J (University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, WI) pp 78–96
24.
ClarkG, 1986, “The crisis in the midwest auto industry”, in Production, Work, Territory: The Geographical Anatomy of Industrial Capitalism Eds ScottAStorperM (Allen and Unwin, Boston, MA) pp 127–148
25.
CookeP, 1988, “Flexible integration, scope economies and strategic alliance”Environment and Planning D: Society and Space6281–300
26.
de JanvryA, 1981The Agrarian Question and Reformism in Latin America (Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD)
27.
D'Incao MelloM C, 1977O Bóia Fria: Acumulação e Miséria (Vozes, Petrópolis)
28.
D'Incao MelloM C, 1985, “O movimento de Guariba: o papel acelerador de crise econômica”Política e Administração1201–222
29.
DuttaBDebrajRSenguptaK, 1989, “Contracts with eviction in infinitely repeated principal-agent relationships”, in The Economic Theory of Agrarian Institutions Ed. BardhanP (Clarendon Press, Oxford) pp 93–121
FASE, 1989, “São Paulo: os novos desafios depois de Guariba” Federação de Órgãos para Assistência Social e Educacional Proposta14(42) 32–40
32.
FitzSimmonsM, 1986, “The new industrial agriculture”Economic Geography62334–351
33.
FolbreN, 1986, “Hearts and spades: paradigms of household economics”World Development14245–255
34.
FriedlandW, 1991, “Introduction: shaping the new political economy of advanced capitalist agriculture”, in Towards a New Political Economy of Agriculture Eds FriedlandW HBuschLButtelF HRudyA P (Westview Press, Boulder, CO) pp 1–36
35.
FriedlandW, 1994, “The global fresh fruit and vegetable system: an industrial organization analysis”, in The Global Restructuring of Agro-Food Systems Ed. McMichaelP (Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY) pp 173–189
36.
FriedlandWNelkinD, 1971Migrant: Agricultural Workers in America's Northeast (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York)
37.
FriedlandWBartonAThomasR, 1981Manufacturing Green Gold: Capital, Labor and Technology in the Lettuce Industry (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge)
38.
FriedmannH, 1991, “Changes in the international division of labor: agri-food complexes and export agriculture”, in Towards a Political Economy of Agriculture Eds FriedlandW HBuschLButtelF HRudyA P (Westview Press, Boulder, CO) pp 65–93
39.
FriedmannH, 1993, “The political economy of food: a global crisis”New Left Review number 197, 29–57
40.
FriedmannH, 1994, “Distance and durability: shaky foundation of the world food economy”, in The Global Restructuring of Agro-Food Systems Ed. McMichaelP (Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY) pp 241–257
41.
GarciaAJr, 1988, “Libertos e sujeitos: sobre a transição para trabalhadores livres do nordeste”Revista Brasileira de Ciências Sociais3(7) 6–41
42.
GloverDKustererK, 1990Small Farmers, Big Business: Contract Farming and Rural Development (Macmillan, London)
43.
GoodmanD, 1977, “The bóias frias: rural proletarianization and urban marginality in Brazil”International Journal of Urban and Regional Research1348–363
44.
GoodmanDRedcliftM, 1985, “Capitalism, petty commodity production and the farm enterprise”Sociologia Ruralis25231–247
45.
GoodmanDRedcliftM, 1991Refashioning Nature: Food, Ecology and Culture (Routledge, London)
46.
GoodmanDWattsM, 1994, “Reconfiguring the rural or fording the divide? Capitalist restructuring and the global agro-food system”Journal of Peasant Studies221–49
47.
GoodmanDSorjBWilkinsonJ, 1987From Farming to Biotechnology (Basil Blackwell, Oxford)
48.
GrzybowskiC, 1987Caminhos e Descaminhos dos Movimentos Sociais no Campo (Vozes, Petrópolis)
49.
HarrisonBBluestoneB, 1988The Great U-Turn: Corporate Restructuring and the Polarizing of America (Basic Books, New York)
50.
HartG, 1991, “Engendering everyday resistance: politics, gender and class formation in rural Malaysia”Journal of Peasant Studies1993–121
51.
HartG, 1992, “Household production reconsidered: gender, labor conflict, and technological change in Malaysia's Muda region”World Development20809–824
52.
HarveyD, 1989The Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change (Basil Blackwell, Oxford)
53.
HechtS, 1997, “Contemporary dynamics of Amazonian development: rethinking colonist attrition”World Development forthcoming
54.
HeffernanWConstanceD, 1994, “Transnational corporations and the globalization of the food system”, in From Columbus to ConAgra: The Globalization of Agriculture and Food Eds BonannoABuschLFriedlandWGouveiaLMingioneE (University Press of Kansas, Lawrence, KA) pp 29–51
55.
IBGE, 1985“Censo Agropecuário: Goiás”, Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatistica, Rio de Janeiro (published 1991)
56.
IBGE, 1989Geografia do Brasil: Região Centro-Oestevolume 1, Institute Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatistica, Rio de Janeiro
57.
JessopB, 1990, “Regulation theories in retrospect and prospect”Economy and Society20153–216
58.
KanjiNJazdowskaN, 1995, “Gender, structural adjustment and employment in urban Zimbabwe”Third World Planning Review17(2) 133–154
KillickA, 1995, “Relevance, meaning and determinants of flexibility”, in The Flexible Economy: Causes and Consequences of the Adaptability of National Economics Ed. KillickA (Routledge, London) pp 1–33
61.
LittleP D, 1994, “Contract farming and the development question”, in Living Under Contract: Contract Farming and Agrarian Transformation in Sub-Saharan Africa Eds LittleP DWattsM J (University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, WI) pp 216–247
62.
LittleP DWattsM J (Eds), 1994Living Under Contract: Contract Farming and Agrarian Transformation in Sub-Saharan Africa (University of Wisconsin Press, Wisconsin, WI)
63.
LongW, 1995, “Slavery tradition dies hard in rural Brazil despite crackdown”Los Angeles Times 18 September, page A4
64.
McWilliamsC, 1935Factories in the Field: The Story of Migratory Farm Labor in California (Peregrine Smith, Santa Barbara, CA)
65.
MannSDickinsonJ M, 1978, “Obstacles to the development of a capitalist agriculture”Journal of Peasant Studies5466–481
66.
MannSDickinsonJ M, 1987, “One furrow forward, two furrows back: a Marx—Weber synthesis for rural sociology?”Rural Sociology52264–285
67.
MarsdenT, 1992, “Exploring a rural sociology for the fordist transition”Sociologia Ruralis32(2/3) 209–230
68.
MartineGAriasA, 1987, “Moderanização e emprego no campo”, in Os Impactos Sociais da Modernização Agricola Eds MartineGCoutinho GarciaR (Caetes, São Paulo) pp 41–57
69.
MooneyP, 1987, “Desperately seeking: one-dimensional Mann and Dickinson”Rural Sociology52286–295
70.
MorrisJ L, 1988, “New technologies, flexible work practices and regional sociospatial differentiations: some observations from the United Kingdom”Environment and Planning D: Society and Space6301–320
71.
MouraM M, 1988Os Deserdados da Terra: A Lógica Costumeira e Judicial dos Processos de Expulsão e Invasão da Terra Componesa no Sertão de Minas Gerais (Bertrand Brasil, Rio de Janeiro)
72.
MyhreD, 1994, “The politics of globalization in rural Mexico: campesino initiatives to restructure the agricultural credit system”, in The Global Restructuring of Agro-Food Systems Ed. McMichaelP (Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY) pp 145–170
73.
PioreMSabelC, 1984The Second Industrial Divide (Basic Books, New York)
74.
Pires da SilvaZ, 1986, “O bóia fria”, unpublished manuscript, Fundaçao Universitária Rio Verde, Rio Verde, Goiás
75.
PorterGPhillips-HowardK, 1995, “Farmers, labourers and the company: exploring relationships on a Transkei contract farming scheme”The Journal of Development Studies3255–73
76.
PuglieseE, 1991, “Agriculture and the new division of labor”, in Towards a Political Economy of Agriculture Eds FriedlandW HBuschLButtelF HRudyA P (Westview Press, Boulder, CO) p 137–150
77.
RaynoldsL, 1994, “The restructuring of third world agro-exports: changing production relations in the Dominican Republic”, in The Global Restructuring of Agro-Food Systems Ed. McMichaelP (Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY) pp 214–238
78.
RobertsB, 1978Cities of Peasants: The Political Economy of Urbanization in the Third World (Sage, London)
79.
SaintW, 1981, “The wages of modernization: a review of the literature on temporary labor arrangements in Brazilian agriculture”Latin American Research Review16(3) 91–110
80.
SalaisR, 1990, “Labour conventions, economic fluctuations and flexibility”, paper presented to the international conference “Pathways to Industrialization and Regional Development in the 1990s”, Lake Arrowhead, CA, March; copy available from the author, Groupement de Recherche ‘Institutions, Emploi et Politiques Économiques’, 59–61 rue Pouchet, 75017 Paris
81.
SandersonS E, 1985, “A critical approach to the Americas in the New International Division of Labor”, in The Americas in the New International Division of Labor Ed. SandersonS E (Holmes and Meier, New York) pp 3–24
82.
SantosM H M E C, 1987A Expansão Canavieira em Goiás e seus Reflexos: Exemplo de Santa Helena de GoiásMAster's thesis, Department of Geography, University of São Paulo
83.
SchaffnerJ A, 1993, “Rural labor legislation and permanent agricultural employment in northeastern Brazil”World Development21705–719
84.
Scheper-HughesN, 1992Death Without Weeping: The Violence of Everyday Life in Brazil (University of California Press, Berkeley, CA)
85.
ScottA J, 1988aMetropolis: From the Division of Labor to Urban Form (University of California Press, Berkeley, CA)
86.
ScottA J, 1988bNew Industrial Spaces: Flexible Production Organization and Regional Development in North America and Western Europe (Pion, London)
87.
da SilvaJ G, 1981Progresso Técnico e Relações de Trabalho na Agricultura (HUCITEC, São Paulo)
88.
SoskinA, 1988Non-traditional Agriculture and Economic Development: The Brazilian Soybean Expansion, 1964–1982 (Praeger, New York)
89.
SpindelC, 1985, “Temporary work in Brazilian agriculture: ‘boia-fria’—a category under investigation”, in Labour Circulation and the Labour Process Ed. StandingG (Croom Helm, London) pp 313–337
90.
StandingG, 1989, “Global feminization through flexible labor”World Development171077–1095
91.
StandingG, 1990, “Alternative routes to labor flexibility”, paper presented to the international conference “Pathways to Industrialization and Regional Development in the 1990s”, Lake Arrowhead, CA, March; copy available from the author, International Labour Office, Geneva
92.
StolckeV, 1988Coffee, Planters, Workers and Wives: Class Conflict and Gender Relations on São Paulo Plantations, 1850–1980 (Macmillan, London)
93.
StorperM, 1991Industrialization, Economic Development, and the Regional Question in the Third World: From Import Substitution to Flexible Production (Pion, London)
94.
StorperMScottA J, 1989, “The geographical foundations and social regulation of flexible production complexes”, in The Power of Geography: How Territory Shapes Social Life Eds WolchJDearM (Allen and Unwin, Winchester, MA) pp 21–40
95.
ThomasR J, 1985Citizenship, Gender, and Work: Social Organization of Industrial Architecture (University of California Press, Berkeley, CA)
96.
WattsM, 1992, “Peasants and flexible accumulation in the Third World: producing under contract”Economic and Political Weekly27(30) 93–97
97.
WattsM J, 1994, “Life under contract: contract farming, agrarian restructuring and flexible accumulation”, in Living Under Contract: Contract Farming and Agrarian Transformation in Sub-Saharan Africa Eds LittleP DWattsM J (University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, WI) pp 21–77
98.
WellsM, 1984, “The resurgence of sharecropping: historical anomaly or political strategy?”American Journal of Sociology901–29
99.
WhatmoreS, 1990Farming Women: Gender, Work and Family Enterprise (Macmillan, London)
100.
WhatmoreS, 1994, “Global agro-food complexes and the refashioning of rural Europe”, in Holding Down the Global Eds AshAThriftN (Guilford Press, New York) pp 46–67
101.
WhatmoreS, 1995, “From farming to agribusiness: the global agro-food system”, in Geographies of Global Change: Remapping the World in the Late Twentieth Century Eds JohnstonR JTaylorPWattsM (Blackwell, Oxford) pp 3–49
