O processo de institucionalização do uso de agrotóxicos entre pequenos cotonicultores brasileiros

Abstract

The present thesis sought to understand how the process of institutionalization of pesticides occurred among small cotton farmers in Brazil between 1945 and 2018. This period was chosen due to the fact that the 1945s marked the beginning of the large-scale adoption of organosynthetic agrochemicals , such as dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane (DDT). The importance of interpreting the cognition of agents that constitute the institutional environment of pesticides lies in the possibility of understanding meanings, symbols and material elements that feed the dynamics of institutionalization of this technology among small Brazilian cotton farmers. It is noticed that in Brazil the pesticides raise questions about the externalities that generate in the society. Inadequate use of these inputs, in addition to generating environmental contamination, causes public health problems, affecting the health of rural workers and consumers. Agribusiness multinationals view pesticides as key technologies to ensure high productivity and food security for the population. Some agents, for example, design pesticides as medicines that have made it possible to increase the quality and quantity of food. Given this context, based on the analysis of actions and conflicts undertaken by agribusiness multinationals, politicians, small family farmers, researchers from different areas and organizations of the third sector, it was intended to verify how the process of institutionalization of this technology occurred among small cotton farmers in Tauá -Ce, Rondonópolis-Mt, São José dos Quatro Marcos-Mt. The case of the Itamaraty-Ms settlement is also analyzed because the small cotton farmers in this context carry out organic cotton cultivation even in the presence of a strong conventional agricultural crop. Concerning theoretical reference, we worked with institutional theory, focusing on institutional pillar conceptions, institutionalization process and deinstitutionalization process. In addition to these concepts, Pierre Bourdieu's concepts were also used to understand how agents use power (capital ratios) to dominate the field and how their habitus can influence their actions in this quest for domination. The assumption that guided this work is that there is (and there was) a clash in the process of institutionalizing pesticides, and agents participating in this struggle have used power to move institutional pillars (regulatory, normative and cultural-cognitive) in order to move forward their interests to institutionalize this technology or deinstitutionalize it.With regard to the method outlined, this is characterized as eminently qualitative. A historical research was carried out on documents to verify the main events that influenced the constitution of the international and national cotton industry. In addition to this step, we conducted semi-structured interviews with several agents that compose the sample to verify their perception about the events. It was also tried to analyze aspects that exerted influence in the process of institutionalization of the use of pesticides, but that may have been veiled by the literature that deals with this theme. The results showed that in Brazil agrochemicals were manily imported and manufactured after the Second World War. At that time, with the pro-modernization discourse for social welfare, the North American businessman Nelson Rockfeller made use of the economic power to set up and sponsor research institutes and to carry out experiments in the agricultural area to shape Brazilian agriculture in accordance with the American agriculture model. Nelson Rockfeller (and also the north American government) also invested in cultural capital by bringing scientists and professors who, endowed with advanced scientific knowledge for the time, proposed the use of science and technology to develop Brazil's agriculture. With the various actions and strategies outlined by Rockefeller and the US Government (mainly under the administration of Harry Truman) there was a movement of the regulatory pillar by the Brazilian public power. The interdependence of the State and interests of Nelson Rockfeller is revealed 9 when the Brazilian government put into practice a project elaborated by the North American businessman, the first rural extension service at the end of 1948. Regarding the analyzed cases, it was verified that only in Tauá-Ce the use of agrochemicals reached a state of sedimentation with the technical assistance effort (mainly through cultural capital) of the state and the farmers' perception of the use of pesticides to control pests. However, in the region the deinstitutionalization of pesticides occurred in the late 1980's when it was found that their use did not combat the cotton boll weevil pest. From 1993 until today, small cotton farmers of Tauá grow organic cotton. It was possible to verify that in Tauá the deinstitutionalization of the organic crop can occur due to the lack of young people staying in the field. In São José dos Quatro Marcos and Rondonópolis there are no small cotton farms growing on a commercial scale. In these two cities pesticides were widely used by cotton growers, but the use of this technology reached the state of objectification. Cotton dependence, pest outbreaks, and high costs to control pests are factors that explain the decline of cotton in these regions in the late 1980s. In these contexts, it was found that state technical assistance (cultural capital) and cotton processors financing farmers (economic capital) were elementary during the process of institutionalization of agrochemicals. In Itamaray-Ms cotton farming has been carried out by small cotton growers since 2008. The beginning of cotton growing in the settlement has always been organic and to be carried out over the years requires that the agents involved invest in cultural capital (construction of agroecological schools) and social capital (organization between farmers and relations with politicians). Despite the effort, it was observed that the logic of conventional cultivation prevails in the settlement (also among state technical assistance). Therefore, the possibility of deinstitutionalization of organic cultivation among these small cotton farmers analyzed is not ruled out. It was concluded that most of the small Brazilian farmers acted as auxiliaries in the process of social construction of the national agricultural field. It is observed, then, that little space was conquered by these farmers so that they could exercise the power to define how the national agriculture should be structured. In addition, it was concluded that cotton cultivation in the Itamaraty settlement and in Tauá may be subject to a process of overthrow in view of the way the agricultural model is structured both at the regional and national levels. These two regions can follow the path of São Paulo and Paraná, which until the early 1990s were important centers of cotton production carried out by small farmers. In Tauá and in the Itamaraty settlement there are common structures that weaken the activities of the small cotton growers of these two contexts, namely: perception that activities outside cotton farming generate more economic results; a large part of state technical assistance has internalized the green revolution packages as a form of agricultural development, and there is a pattern of pesticide use in the surrounding area of the plantations of small cotton growers.