Modernização e Questão Agrária: o caso da fruticultura irrigada de Baraúna-RN, 1982-2012

Abstract

The present work has as objective to analyze if the agricultural modernization would have been an incentive, or not, of a movement of concentration and land idleness. To do so, it proposes the elaboration of a case study with the municipality of Baraúna (RN), as it is contained in an area of expansion of the Irrigated Fruticulture (FI) - this one, understood as a symbol of the recent agricultural modernization, in that municipality. For the preparation of the present study, a bibliographical research was used, and data from the IBGE were collected from the Municipal Registry Office, from which the statistical-descriptive method was used to present the results of the research. The period from 1982 to 2012 was chosen for the excellent performance of the modernized FI and the dynamism of its MTA. The main results were as follows: a) the modernization did not provoke an increase of the land concentration, expressed by a Gini index below the average of the state of the RN and Brazil; B) the volume of idleness of the land, taken as a parameter of speculation, remained stable during the study period. Thus, despite the vast literature to the contrary that analyzes the general case, this case study concluded that agricultural modernization, when it modified both concentration and landlessness, was to a small degree.