PRODUCING CHEAP WATER: THE EXEMPTION OF PAYMENT FOR THE RIGHT TO USE WATER TO THE AGRICULTURAL SECTOR IN THE STATE OF PARANÁ

Abstract

Inspired mainly by Jason Moore's Cheap Nature approach, the article presents the development of the notion of cheap water based on the analysis of the pioneering decision of the state of Paraná to legalize the exemption of payment for the right to use water to the agricultural sector. The research used a qualitative and critical approach, based on the analysis of documents and official databases, and the content of interviews and journalistic reports. The article points out that the conquest of the exemption is an expression of the hegemonic power of Parana's agricultural sector in the relations of forces that have reconfigured the sharing of water in recent decades. The privileged access to cheap (devalued) water reserves has required the active and selective action of the State through political control and the reproduction of depoliticizing imaginaries of water. The struggle for cheap water is, dialectically, a struggle for the appropriation of the highest possible value of water devalued by dispossession, cost extroversion and exclusion. A relational notion of cheap water can contribute to understanding and contesting the reproduction of the unequal distribution of benefits and costs of the flows that connect regional waters to the Capitalist World Ecology.