Do new environmental regulations support emergent agricultural frontiers in Brazil? – SOYLANDIA

The acceleration of agroindustrial expansion in South America is giving rise to a great deal of research in social and environmental sciences. The SOYLANDIA project innovates with an interdisciplinary, comparative and multiscalar method of environmental regulation that presents several original features: 1) a cross-cutting approach of three case studies, in order to grasp the variability of the stakeholders' strategies and territorial dynamics at stake, 2) a multi-scalar analysis taking into account the relationships between national strategies and local practices of agroindustrial expansion, in their material and discursive dimensions 3) a spatially explicit hypothesis to understand the coexistence between increasing regulation and agricultural frontiers, 4) the consideration of the complexity of these strategies beyond deforestation issues, by incorporating water issues (access to and uses of water resources and wetlands).

The study sites are new frontiers of soybean expansion, located at the humid tropical borders of the country (Amazonia and Pantanal), and older frontiers reactivated through irrigation, in savanna uplands (Cerrado).

We rely on the complementarity between geography, sociology and agro-economics to jointly analyze the environmental practices and narratives of brazilian agribusiness sector.
The team is composed of 11 french researchers in geography, geomatics, agro-economics, sociology, political science and law. It relies on two main partners (UMR ART-Dev and PRODIG) and on collaborations with Brazilian
research institutions, local associations and NGOs.

The project aims, firstly, to generate empirical data on the practices and scientific networks of large agricultural producers in Brazil, who are generally reluctant to research about the environmental impacts of their activities. Second, SOYLANDIA will spatialize entrepreneurial practices and public policy instruments that enable agroindustrial expansion. Third, it will provide a comparative dimension on the phenomena of environmental degradation in regions dominated by a 'plantation' system (as defined by Haraway, 2015), bridging two major environmental problems (deforestation and water) that are often treated separately. Fourth, it will highlight the economic and political logics underlying divergent scientific narratives on deforestation and the water crisis. Fifth, the project will have direct applications for the debate of environmental policies with society, in Europe and South America, thanks to already proven partnerships between universities, non-governmental organizations and local associations.

SOYLANDIA will have important applications for the debate of environmental policies with society, in South America and Europe.
Its innovative approach explore territorial dynamics due to the structuring of globalized value chains and the deployment of environmental policies in a context of climate and water crisis. Through empirical data on agricultural and spatial recompositions, the diversity of stakeholders and environmental knowledge involved in these recent transformations, it will contribute to the geography of rural areas in emerging countries, and, more generally, to the field of environmental political geography.

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In Brazil, agroindustrial expansion has accelerated since the 2000s, with new combinations of monocrops (mainly soybeans) and cattle ranching, despite various instruments of environmental regulation (rural environmental cadastre, deforestation licenses, water licences, etc.).
We hypothesize that these new forms of regulation actually support the spatial expansion of agriculture. The objective of SOYLANDIA is to identify how agribusiness actors construct, modulate or use these instruments to develop their activities, through three complementary approaches (WPs): 1) the co-construction of legal and regulatory frameworks, 2) the spatial practices of agricultural enterprises, and 3) the genesis of environmental narratives favorable to agribusiness. The study sites are new frontiers of soybean expansion, located at the humid tropical borders of the country (Amazonia and Pantanal), and older frontiers reactivated through irrigation, in savanna uplands (Cerrado).
The project presents two innovations: a) an interdisciplinary approach to understand the material and discursive dimensions of agroindustrial expansion strategies, and b) the consideration of the complexity of these strategies beyond deforestation issues, by incorporating water issues. SOYLANDIA differs from current work on deforestation, based on the monitoring of agricultural frontiers through remote sensing. The team is composed of 11 french researchers in geography, geomatics, agro-economics, sociology, political science and law. It relies on two main partners (UMR ART-Dev and PRODIG) and on collaborations with Brazilian research institutions, local associations and NGOs. It will have important applications for the debate of environmental policies with society, in South America and Europe.