Expansion of the soybean frontier in the PA-151 axis: Socio-environmental impacts and risks for family farming

Abstract

This article aims to understand the process of expansion of the soybean agricultural frontier in the PA-151 axis, Tocantins Integration Region. It is assumed that (inter)national capital has transformed the Amazon into a resource frontier. In this sense, we seek to understand how the Amazon has been incorporated by agribusiness and what are the socio-environmental repercussions resulting from the intensification of soybean cultivation in the region. In this sense, a bibliographic survey of authors who deal with the subject was carried out, as well as a survey and treatment of soybean data from the IBGE's Automatic Recovery System (SIDRA) between 2000 and 2023. In a complementary way, fieldwork was carried out in the Ponta de Terra locality in the municipality of Cametá-PA, with the objective of documenting socio-environmental problems resulting from the advancement of the soybean agricultural frontier. The results of the research indicate that the soybean agricultural frontier is advancing along the PA-151 highway axis, which is rapidly consolidating, facilitated not only by the social conditions of the populations, but also by the state's inaction in relation to family farming and land use planning. Even though it is in its initial phase, it presents socio-environmental effects that require state action to protect the local populations which inhabit the region and that have historically produced that space.