Agricultural plans for Brazil's Grande Carajás program: Lost opportunity for sustainable local development?

Abstract

Brazil's Grande Carajás regional development plan would radically transform agriculture and other sectors of the economy of the 840,000 km2 zone of influence of Carajás, site of the world's largest high-grade iron ore deposits. Most land and financial resources would be channelled to large landholders, with lesser amounts going to small farmers brought to private colonization schemes from outside the region. The merely token amounts to be allotted to the landless already in the area are unlikely to counteract the program's probable role in exacerbating the already intense conflicts between large cattle ranchers and an increasing flood of landless squatters who migrate to the region due to population growth and land concentration in other parts of Brazil. The agricultural transformations to be promoted would also contribute to a variety of environmental problems and probably not be sustainable for long. The present plan squanders an invaluable opportunity to guide agricultural development toward sustainable forms chosen on the basis of long-term support for the region's present population and their descendants. © 1986.