Agricultural clusters and poverty in municipalities in the Northeast Region of Brazil: A spatial perspective

Abstract

This article evaluated the spatial distribution of agricultural activity in the municipalities of the Northeast Region of Brazil, relating it to the characteristics of this activity that can increase, alleviate or perpetuate poverty conditions, including elements that capture spatial dependence. For this purpose, data from the 2017 Agricultural Census were used. In addition, these data were disaggregated by typology of family farming, emphasizing the delimitation of poor and extremely poor rural producers categorized in the so-called Group B of the National Program for Strengthening Family Farming (PRONAF), in addition to the Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis (ESDA). The results indicate that, despite the Northeast Region having the largest number of establishments and employed persons in the Brazilian Agricultural sector, there is a marked internal differentiation. Family farming is dominant, but it has the smallest amount of land and production value. Furthermore, in the family segment, there is a predominance of poor and extremely poor producers allocated in Group B of PRONAF, who have little access to technologies and sources of financing and a low degree of association. In addition, most of the establishments in Group B of PRONAF have their self-consumption as their main production purpose, with the income obtained from the activities carried out in the establishment being predominantly lower than the income from other sources. In addition to the income generated by the establishment's production, income from retirement and pension resources and from government programs stands out. Furthermore, the ESDA made it possible to identify: possible spatial inequalities; municipalities with low values of the analyzed parameters, with neighbors whose average of the parameters is also low; and agglomerations potentially inducing economic development, through integration and local complementarity, provided by the concentration of productive activity.