Industrialized Nature by Josephson Paul;

Author:Josephson, Paul; [Josephson, Paul]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 6531064
Publisher: Island Press
Published: 2013-02-18T00:00:00+00:00

The Cash Cow and the Ranch

The cash cow—symbolically and literally—has played a central role in Amazonian development. Military leaders were aware of the need to provide inexpensive food (especially beef) to placate the urban and rural poor; at the same time, they could try to buy off the urban middle class and elites through subsidization of agriculture. Political leaders and engineers also saw Amazon development as a solution to a crisis in the meat industry, given that traditional Brazilian producers had been unable to meet demand for inexpensive domestic consumption or exports to earn foreign exchange. Government officials believed that the introduction of corporate ranches would underwrite frontier development, increase exports, and create employment. Assuming the fertility of soils under the forest canopy, they used extensive subsidies to encourage land clearance for grazing of beef cattle. Expansion of production in the Amazon through ranching seemed reasonable; it would be easier than cash crop production because cattle were easier to maintain and had low labor requirements. A semi-skilled labor pool existed; animals could be walked to market if bridges collapsed or roads became impassable. Demand from the United States, Europe, Japan, and even eastern Europe provided additional incentives. The World Bank was a willing partner, and tax incentives, cheap loans, grace periods, and subsidized credits came through SUDAM for the agri-industrial elite.54

The Amazon ranches themselves are large scale technologies, covering a total of more than 9 million hectares. Careful study by Diegues and others indicates that most of the 8.4 million hectares of land SUDAM approved for development went to 631 ranches, many of which were Brazilian subsidiaries of multinational corporations (Liquigas at 678,000 hectares, Suia-Missu at 560,000, Volkswagen at 139,000, and Armour-Swift at 72,000, for example). Approximately 7.3 million hectares of land for logging, cattle ranching, and agriculture is owned by multinational groups. Diegues notes that Jari Florestal (National Bulk Carriers) alone, which was acquired by Daniel Ludwig-USA, “owned around 3,200,000 hectares of land in Pará and Amapá.” Several groups, based mostly in the United States, Canada, Japan, and the United Kingdom, owned more than 300,000 hectares each. Had the Brazilian government not learned from the giveaway to Henry Ford? The ranchers say they are the pioneers and the heroes of the conquest of the Amazon. If that means accumulation of vast tracts of land, they are heroes.55

The government believed that small farmers and peasants were responsible for deforestation and destruction of soil, but in fact the massive ranches destroyed far more resources. The peasants were subsistence farmers, requiring wage labor to survive and turning to lumber, fish, and nuts to eke out an existence. The highway pulled them into the Amazon, but land policies, competing title claims, and consolidation of holdings in the hands of the elites contributed to agricultural failure. This in turn sent peasants, settlers, and squatters farther into the interior, triggering the next round of clearings.56

Although the Brazilian government ultimately discontinued the incentives for cattle ranching, its programs promoted irrevocable damage to the forest. The initial

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