The political economy of commodity boom: agricultural prices, land dynamics and rural violence in Brazil since the beginning of the millennium

• In Event: Agricultural Commodities, Land and Rents in South America

Abstract

The goal of the paper is to explore the relationship between the prices of major agricultural commodities - soybeans, corn, sugar, meat - the land dynamics and rural violence in Brazil. The initial assumption is that a significant increase in commodity prices stimulates the supply of commodities and pressure the land prices. Depending on the institutional environment, this dynamic can generate an increase in violence and rural conflicts. To address this issue, the article analyzes the dynamics of agricultural supply, the trends in land prices, the expansion of the agricultural frontier, the type of rural conflicts and where they were most intense in Brazil since the beginning of the new millennium, a period marked by the exports growth of agricultural commodities and leftist governments (governments of Lula and Rousseff).

Author

• Georges Flexor, Universidade Federal Rural do Rio de Janeiro (UFRRJ)