From July 29th to August 1st, Unicamp is hosting the country's largest academic event in the area of agriculture and rural development: the 56th Congress of the Brazilian Society of Economics, Administration and Rural Sociology (Sober), which this year's theme is “Recent Transformations in Brazilian Agriculture: challenges in management, innovation, sustainability and social inclusion”. More than a thousand people are distributed throughout the auditoriums of the Convention Center, the Institute of Economics (IE) and the Institute of Philosophy and Human Sciences (IFCH), interested in the round tables, panels, exhibition of scientific works and short courses.
Antonio Marcio Buainain, professor at IE and coordinator of the local organizing committee, notes that Sober is one of the most traditional scientific societies in research on rural areas, which involve not only agriculture, but also populations and territorial issues in general. . “We understand that agriculture has been the axis of growth in the Brazilian economy – a small growth, but that is due to the contribution of this sector, which is undergoing transformations and facing major challenges.”
According to Buainain, the first major challenge for agriculture is to continue growing, and with sustainability in its broad sense, which includes the environment and the social and political dimension, in order to meet the increased demand for food in Brazil and the world. . “It is a great opportunity for the country to supply the global food market. To achieve this, our agriculture needs to grow, and without polluting, deforesting and poisoning.”
The second major challenge, adds the Unicamp professor, is environmental. “In our view, the issue of the environment is the big bomb that humanity has in its hands. In the past, we had the hunger bomb: the philosopher [Thomas] Malthus predicted that humanity would suffer due to lack of food, with production unable to keep up with demand and collapsing – the so-called 'Malthusian ghost'. This ghost was removed with the green revolution, introduced in the late 50s and which is the basis of agricultural modernization as we know it today.”
Buainain notes that current agriculture is full of problems and that the world continues to have almost a billion people in conditions of food insufficiency, but that this is not due to a lack of food, but rather to social conflicts, such as large migrations. “There is availability and access to food is viable. Today's ghost is the environment and agriculture is not the main factor, as seems to be common sense. It is convenient for those in the city to hold the farmer responsible, when we are the ones who have an unsustainable consumption pattern, produce waste incessantly and prefer the car to cycling or walking.”
Social inclusion is the third challenge highlighted by the IE professor, given the thousands of small farmers who are being left out of the production process and need to be incorporated. “For the agricultural sector to overcome these three major challenges, a basic ingredient is innovation and management capacity. Without innovation we will not find solutions to produce more food while saving the environment. And it is necessary to consider that agriculture is integrated into the national and global economy, the farmer is no longer just the one who sows the seed and then harvests it – those who sow need to protect themselves from risks, know how to market and be aware of available technologies.”
Antonio Marcio Buainain also commented on data from the 2017 Agricultural Census released by IBGE last week, reporting a 5% increase in the area occupied by agriculture (16,5 million hectares, equivalent to the area of the state of Acre) in relation to 2006 Census. “As a result, there was deforestation and also an expansion in the number of establishments that use chemical products. The press published this data as something negative, but the reading could be different: that in 15 years the area grew little and, in compensation, grain production more than doubled. But we need to look deeper at the data, which should be very useful in understanding these transformations in agriculture.”
Agenda
The 56th Sober Congress was organized by professor Lauro Francisco Mattei, president of the entity. Rodrigo Lanna and Marcelo Pereira da Cunha also participated in the local organization. After the solemn opening session and master class – “Transformations in Brazilian agriculture” – on Sunday night, the work effectively opened on Monday, with three panels: “Economic and social situation in times of crisis and the challenges for Brazilian agriculture”, “Agricultural production: scope and limits in the search for sustainability” and “Challenges of Postgraduate Studies in times of crisis”.
More information on the event's website: http://sober.org.br/congresso2018/
