Aspectos ligados a produção de soja na região de Catalão – GO

Abstract

Soybean has been one of the main agricultural crops produced in Brazil since the twentieth century. This crop corresponds to approximately 47% of the total volume of produced grains and the Centro-Oeste (Midwest) is the largest producer of the grain in Brazil. It is worth to highlight that, in the Southeast Goiás, the municipality of Catalão – GO experienced a major productive reorganization in the 1980s, with higher level of industrialization and the establishment of a good economic/technological infrastructure. More precisely, at the beginning of this century, due to physical capabilities, it consolidated modern agriculture, with large areas of flat relief, or gently rolling hills, that agricultural modernization effected evenly. The physical and natural characteristics of the soil, geographical location and aptitude for soybean seed production opened a range of great prosperity for the surrounding population of that city and also created new demand of products. Currently, this area is one of the “hotspots” of technical, scientific and informational prosperity in the agricultural productive process of Southwest Goiás. Thereby, the purpose of this study was to demonstrate the evolution of agricultural environment that led Catalão - GO to become an agricultural and soybean productive pole. The methodology used was bibliographical, using deductive and inductive methods aided by the evolutionary-historical method, through theoretical reference investigated in classical and contemporary authors. It has been found that the massive government incentives planned and deployed in the 1970s were very successful. Now, the Brazilian cerrado, and specifically Catalão´s surroundings, take advantage of those incentives, alongside the nation as a whole which benefits by agribusiness exports and from the development of an agroindustrial complex which developed around the Brazilian agricultural productive sector. As a limitation for further development, the Brazilian cerrado faces some logistics issues even though Catalão´s surroundings do no confront this situation.