FROM COLONIAL BRAZIL TO REPUBLIC BRAZIL: THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE LATIFUNDIUM AND THE CULTIVARS

Abstract

Access to land is configured as access to productivity, housing, work and survival. Knowing that this access is unequal, it is worth reflecting on the issue, since it directly impacts the lives of individuals, especially small farmers. Furthermore, understanding the historical roots of the latifundio can also contribute to the understanding of the agrarian question in contemporary times. In this aspect, this article aimed to understand in the course of history how the agrarian question was engendered in colonial Brazil and the Republic and the forms of cultivation in contemporary Brazil. For this, a historical overview of Colonial Brazil and Republic Brazil was drawn and reflected on the agrarian question in these periods as well as on the ways of cultivating. The qualitative research approach that favors the interpretation of meanings to the detriment of the purely numerical was used, and as a method, the bibliographic review, in which a bibliographic survey is carried out to reflect the issues focused. With the research, it was noted that the origin of the latifundio dates back to colonization and policies such as the sesmarias and the Land Law. From the 1950s onwards, a struggle for agrarian reform began, which would be able to democratize access to land, however, there were political and economic tensions that immobilized the realization of such reform, accentuating the great interference of the State in providing everyone with access to housing and work in rural areas. It was also concluded that the hegemony of transgenic seeds goes hand in hand with the capitalist system and the landowning forms of production.