We have exposed in this work the doctorate thesis titled: LAND USE, OIL PALM
FARMING AND PRODUCTION OF FOOD CROPS: An Analysis of Family Farmers
Integrated with the Company Agropalma, in the municipality of Moju, PA, Brazil. We defend
in the thesis that oil palm farming reduces food production in the locations where it is
implemented. Our hypothesis is that this reduction occurs because the implementation of family
agriculture projects with oil palm cultivation requires two essential resources: labor and land.
In the specific case of pilot projects I (2002) and III (2005), integrated with the company
Agropalma, the occupation of the area was different compared with the occupation of the area
of project IV (2006). We aimed to analyze the impacts of oil palm farming expansion on food
production by the family groups integrated with the productive chain of oil palm in the
municipality of Moju. We wished, in this study, just as Nahum and Santos (2015), to
geographically interpret the oil palm farming dynamics in the municipality of Moju starting at
the category of used land (Santos; Silveira, 2001). We used, in this study, two methodologically
complementary procedures: The analytical methodology based on the periodization and event
concepts by Santos (2006) and Santos and Silveira (2001), which allowed us to think of a
previous time (T1), the arrival of events (projects), and a period of time after the implementation
of the projects (T2); and the operational methodology composed of literature review,
cartographic surveys, structured and semi-structured interviews, and field work. The thesis is
structured in three parts: In the first chapter, we analyze the land use by small family farmers
prior to the arrival of family projects with oil palm crops. We used the peasant farm category
by Woortmann (1983) to empirically show those dynamics. In those properties, land uses were
subjected to different forms of work, solidarity bonds, and production systems. Their
productions aimed at both consumption (use) and sale (exchange). In the second chapter, we
show the events that shaped the family agriculture projects with oil palm farming in the Alto
Moju and PA 150 regions, in the municipality of Moju. We analyzed, above all, the events that
enabled the emergence of projects I (Arauaí I) and project II (Arauaí II), part of the Association
of Community Development of the Arauaí Sector (Associação do Desenvolvimento
Comunitário do Ramal do Arauaí - ASDECRA). In the third chapter, we analyze the
transformations the process of integrating family projects to oil palm farming brought to land
use, to the subjects, and to the production of food crops that fed the households and myriad
remote homes.
|
