Socio-environmental implications of agribusiness in Brazil

the need for agroecology as a viable alternative

Abstract

Agribusiness is in full and rapid development in Brazil, occupying a prominent position in the world in agricultural production (commodities) and consumption of pesticides. The model of agriculture practiced in an inconvenient and predatory way has adverse impacts on the environment and on human health, causing soil and water contamination, loss of biodiversity, intoxication, and occupation of territories in an illegal and deadly way. Thus, the objective of this article is to discuss the main issues of agribusiness expansion in Brazil, its causes and consequences, and its socio-environmental impacts. On the one hand, we have the neocapitalist project of exhausting natural resources and its simplified form of a productive and profitable chain; on the other hand, we have agroecology, which presents itself as a possibility of changing the paradigm of this model of agricultural production. This brief review offers considerations that contextualize the need for integration of economic growth with the promotion of social and environmental development, with regard to Brazilian agribusiness, and it is the duty of the State to carry out actions that reconcile these dimensions.