[Retratos] Frontiers of rural Amazon
November 16, 2017 02h00 PM | Last Updated: November 16, 2017 03h13 PM
The reality of the agricultural establishments located in the rural Amazon will be also portrayed in the Census of Agriculture 2017, carried out by the IBGE. Data collection began in October this year and should last up to February 2018. Yet, where does the Amazon begin and end?
One way to look at this territory, the Legal Amazon spreads over more than 5 million km2, including all the states in the North Region and also the state of Mato Grosso and part of Maranhão – more precisely the west of meridian 44, which includes its capital, São Luís.
As we leave the deep Amazon towards its frontiers, the landscape begins to change. Nothing is sudden: a little less rain, when we approach the Cerrado; recent marks of human intervention in the agricultural frontier of Matopiba, competing with the forest; advances in the extensive livestock, also negotiating frontiers with the native forest. Frontier areas are like this, a space of changes, transactions and transitions.
In Maranhão, the pre-Amazon region of Turiacu is known for the production of a high-quality pineapple, under the regime of family farming. In Mato Grosso, which is still within the Legal Amazon, the vicinity of the forest and Cerrado highlights practices that streamlines the production without degrading nature.
See more details of the rural frontiers of the Amazon in the fifth edition of the Retratos magazine.
Text: Marília Loschi
Contribution: Airton Mota, Alexandre Guimarães, João Ricardo Silva, José Reinaldo Júnior and Pedro Renaux
Photos: Flávio Nagel and João Ricardo Silva
