A dolorosa modernização agrícola vista "do lado de cá": o direito a terra e ao território a partir da implantação do Perímetro Irrigado Jaguaribe-Apodi (CE)

Abstract

This work discusses the acess to land and to the territory by means of an analysis on the implementation of Irrigated Perimeters in Jaguaribe-Apodi, where it was implemented at the late 1980s, in an area which includes two towns: Limoeiro do Norte and Quixeré (Ceará’s State). In order to discuss the theme, a historical study is done on the meanings that “ land” has been assuming in different modes of production. Besides that, it is also intended to comprehend how such meanings have been altered by private property and which factors have contributed to redefine it in the capistalist system. Furthermore, notions of territory are presented and it is established a relationship between such concept and the meaning of the right to appropriate housing. In sequence, we point the main national and international changes which are involved in the process of modernization and industrialization in agriculture at the second half of the twentieth century as well as the political application of this new model by means of the creation of Irrigated Perimeters in the Northeast of Brazil. Also, it will be demonstrated how occured the implementation and operationalization of Irrigated Perimeters of JaguaribeApodi. We emphasize the issues related to the violations of the right to the acess to the land and to the territory that are caused by this public measure which has affected populations of countrymen who used to inhabit the area where such measure was implemented. Through a documental and a bibliographic research, this work aims at investigating the impacts on the acess to land and to territory which such perimeter causes in peasants’ lives. In addition to that, we also aim at understanding the relationtionship between these impacts and the project of development that has been benefited by this politics of irrigation adopted by Brazillian State. Among the results, it is possible to notice that the procedure of misappropriation used in order to install the Jaguaribi-Apodi perimeter has, in fact, conducted the deterritorialization of countrymen communities and the deepening of social and environmental unequalities produced in the region Baixo Jaguaribe. All and all, some data is brought as they correspond to other irrigated perimeters that were implemented in the Northeast so as to observe the similarities in the application of the politics of irrigation and the lack of respect that has been brought to the right to land and to territory, that has been meant to fostering a model of exploitative production and based on agribusiness. At the same time, it is emphasized the importance of the countryman way of living to promote social, economical, environmental, cultural rights which agribusiness does not ensure.