O agribusiness – eventually called by agribusiness – is a term used to refer to the socio-spatial context of agricultural production, including all services, techniques and equipment related to it, directly or indirectly.
Therefore, this sector of the economy involves a chain of activities that includes agricultural production itself (crop cultivation such as the coffee, cotton, livestock etc.), the demand for fertilizers and fertilizers, the development of agricultural machinery, the industrialization of rural products (such as oils, cigarettes, instant coffee, among others) and the development of technologies to make all these activities.
Contrary to what many people imagine, agribusiness is not only related to the countryside, it is spatialized also in the urban environment, being one of the vectors for promoting the subordination of rural activities to the dynamics of cities. This is because, as the agribusiness modernizes, the more it becomes dependent on industrial and productive actions coming from the cities.
This important field of economics involves an interrelationship between the three sectors: the primary (with agriculture), the secondary (with the technology and raw material transformation industries) and the tertiary (with the transport and sale of products from the field).
One of the facets of production in the context of agribusiness is the concentration of investments. Producers invest both in the production itself and in the elements that enable or improve its execution. Thus, this activity integrates scientific studies related to the field and to biotechnology and even to meteorology and climatology, in order to observe the best conditions to intensify the accumulation of capital by its owners.
Brazilian agribusiness is one of the most representative in the world, especially with regard to the dynamics of exports. Brazil is the world's largest exporter of coffee, sugar and sugar cane; it is also the second largest exporter of beef and the largest exporter of chicken meat, and is also the fourth in the world in the international sale of pork. The trend is for the profits produced in this sector to intensify even more, with increases estimated at 40% in the coming years, according to the Ministry of Agriculture.
Criticism of agribusiness
Agribusiness is criticized from two conceptions: one with an economic-social bias and the other with an environmental nature.
Regarding this last position, clashes in the political context involving the so-called “ruralists” against the “environmentalists” are common. The latter often accuse the former of being responsible for the disorderly expansion of land cultivable in the national territory, expanding the agricultural frontier and reducing the amount of environmental and green areas. There are also accusations involving cultivation in conservation areas close to reserves and environmental parks, in addition to the pollution of water courses by fertilizers and other toxic products.
Criticism of a social nature is intrinsically related to rural social movements, with emphasis on the Landless Workers Movement (MST) which accuses the agribusiness to intensify the process of land concentration, in which an increasing number of land is held under the possession of an increasingly smaller number of investors. Furthermore, the ruralists, in this case, are accused of halting the Agrarian Reform policies in Brazil, which have dragged on since the mid-twentieth century without a definitive solution.
IBGE data state that the GINI index in Brazilian agriculture is high, that is, the concentration of land remains high. According to the 2006 Agricultural Census, this index remained at 0.854 (when the rate is close to 0.0, means that there is a good distribution, but when it is close to 1.0, it means that there is a bad distribution).
In economic and productive terms, agribusiness was responsible for participating in 22.5% of GDP (Product Domestic) of Brazil in 2012, which reveals the political and financial weight of this sector in the context national.
By Me. Rodolfo Alves Pena
Source: Brazil School - https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/o-que-e/geografia/o-que-e-agronegocio.htm