A saga da soja nipo-brasileira: ditadura militar e implementação do PRODECER nos Cerrados brasileiros (1964-1979)

Abstract

This work aims to examine the process of conservative modernisation of Brazilian agriculture, based on a Japanese-Brazilian cooperation project called PRODECER (1979-2001). To this end, we will analyse the rearrangement of private land property rights during the first decade of the Brazilian military dictatorship (1964-1985), as well as EMBRAPA's activities in the Cerrado biome, aimed at disseminating and implementing a post-World War II agricultural production modernisation model, known as the Green Revolution. Next, Japanese-American foreign policy will be the object of this work's analysis, observing the context of global crisis generated by the 1973 Oil Crisis and the Japanese diplomatic approach to Brazil after the US embargo on grain exports, the paradigm shift within Brazilian foreign policy that occurred between the governments of Castelo Branco and Geisel, as well as the discourse of complementarity created between the two governments to justify, from a political standpoint, the establishment of agricultural cooperation between both countries. Finally, we will prescribe the implementation of the first phase of PRODECER in the north-west of the state of Minas Gerais, where we will analyse the territorial and socioeconomic elements of the project, the resistance undertaken by the CPT together with rural workers in the area, and finally observe the territorial reorganisation achieved in an area of the Brazilian Cerrados, made possible by the mobilisation of rural workers from the south of the country. In short, this dissertation aims to shed light on specific aspects of the process of conservative modernization of agriculture in Brazil during the military dictatorship, based on notions of private land ownership, development, territorial occupation and change in the agricultural pattern.