Soy expansion into the agricultural frontiers of the Brazilian Amazon: The agribusiness economy and its social and environmental conflicts

The state of Pará in the Brazilian Amazon is recognized both nationally and internationally for its land conflicts throughout history. Agricultural modernization and the expansion of the agricultural frontier, especially with regard to soybean production, did not significantly alter Pará’s record of conflict and violence. Instead, new actors involved in agro-strategies and the Amazonian agribusiness economy have experienced new land disputes, new forms of land concentration, and conflicts with indigenous tribes, Maroon communities and peasants’ groups in the Santarém region, the most important urban and rural centre of Western Pará, in the heartland of Brazilian Amazon. This article examines relations between the arrival and expansion of soybean plantations, particularly in post-2001, as part of regional agro-strategies that have perpetuated and deepened long-standing conflicts over land in the state of Pará. It also highlights the emergence of new territorial disputes, which have created additional obstacles, increasing the demand for land and raising land prices while impacting processes by which land and territorial rights are secured in the state of Pará.