Espaço e a Política Nacional de Irrigação no estado da Bahia sob administração do Departamento Nacional de Obras Contra as Secas (DNOCS)

Abstract

In order to solve the political and economic problems historically present in the Northeast region of Brazil, and specifically in its poorest sub-area, the semi-arid region, in the late 1960s the central government launched a large irrigation program aimed at the hydroagricultural use of the humid valleys included in the polygon of droughts. Two federal public agencies were charged with the responsibility of economic feasibility studies, implementation and administration of public irrigation projects, according to their areas of competence. Thus, the Companhia do Vale do São Francisco (Codevasf) was responsible for the installation of irrigated perimeters in the area corresponding to the São Francisco river valley. The Department of Works Against Droughts (DNOCS), in turn, was responsible for the installation of irrigated perimeters in the other hydrographic basins of the semi-arid region. While the projects run by the first agency would prioritize business irrigation, the projects run by the second would prioritize family irrigation, contemplating small farmer families and thus fulfilling the social function foreseen in the legal instruments that created the program. In this sense, the state of Bahia was awarded three public irrigation projects in the area covered by DNOCS. Still in the early 1970s the municipality of Itiúba received the Jacurici Irrigated Perimeter and the municipality of Canudos, the Vaza-Barris Irrigated Perimeter. In the late 1980's it was the turn of the municipality of Livramento de Nossa Senhora to receive the implementation of the Brumado Irrigated Perimeter. It is known that these interventions resulted in great socio-spatial alterations in the municipalities receiving the projects. The change of political and economic paradigm, which occurred in the transition from the 1970s to the 1980s, caused the redirection of the irrigation public policy that governed the program, which, throughout time, suffered important modifications, deviating from the original objectives. The main objective of this study is to analyze the socio-spatial repercussions of state intervention through the installation of irrigated perimeters in three different municipalities of the State of Bahia, under the competence of DNOCS.