Transformations of the Agricultural Frontier in Matopiba: From State Planning to the Financialisation of Land

Abstract

This article explores how the agricultural frontier in Brazil is conceived and how it has been historically shaped by broader socioeconomic changes. It considers the planning process linked to the Cerrado occupation during the military dictatorship (1964–85). The article analyses understandings of the frontier that connected it to concerns about ‘demographic gaps’ and shaped an agenda of state-led ‘national integration’ that neglected local populations. This analysis is linked to recent transnational real estate activities in Matopiba to document how control over the territory persists but is now driven by different protagonists and logics. We document how Brazilian agribusinesses, in association with transnational capital, have created transnational agricultural real estate companies and acquired land in frontier areas such as Matopiba. Although the violence of expropriation and deforestation persists, there are new financial mechanisms that condition the agricultural frontier and exert control over territory, quite unlike previous forms of state-led occupation.