The land structure of the state of Goiás: mediations and content underlying private land ownership¹

La estructura de la tierra de Goiás: mediaciones y contenido subyacente a la propiedad privada de la tierra

Abstract

The historical domination of the land in Brazil has meant the domination of the territory, control of the state, and its public funds. As a living contradiction, fences curtailed the right to land and gave rise to the struggle for land and for agrarian reform. In the meantime, this article presents the contemporary land structure of the state of Goiás and discusses the historical mediations of its constitution. To that end, bibliographical and documentary research were carried out. The results show that the struggle for land and for agrarian reform, responsible for land regularization and expropriation, culminated in 426 settlements with 23,670 families settled. Latifundia hold 62% of the area in hectares and 6.10% of the rural properties in the state of Goiás. On the other hand, minifundia and small properties control 76.23% of the properties and 17.93% of the real state area.

Keywords: Land structure; Peasantry; Landowner; Agrarian reform

Resumen

El dominio histórico de la tierra en Brasil significó dominio del territorio, control del Estado y de sus fondos públicos. El cerco cercenó el derecho a la tierra, como contradicción viva, también parió la lucha en la tierra y por la reforma agraria. En este ínterin, este artículo presenta la estructura agraria contemporánea de Goiás y diserta sobre las mediaciones históricas de su constitución. Para ello, se utilizó de investigación bibliográfica y investigación documental. Los resultados apuntan que la lucha por la tierra y por la reforma agraria, responsable por regularizaciones agrarias y expropiación de tierras, culminó con la creación de 426 asentamientos con 23.670 familias asentadas. El latifundio detiene 62% del área en hectáreas y 6,10% de las propiedades rurales en Goiás. Ya los minifundios y las pequeñas propiedades controlan 76,23% de las propiedades y 17,93% del área de los inmuebles.

Palabras clave: Estructura de la tierra; Campesinado; Terrateniente; Reforma agraria

Resumo

O domínio histórico da terra no Brasil significou domínio do território e controle do Estado e de seus fundos públicos. A cerca cerceou o direito à terra e, como contradição viva, também pariu a luta na terra e pela reforma agrária. Nesse ínterim, este artigo apresenta a estrutura fundiária contemporânea de Goiás e as mediações históricas de sua constituição. Para isso, valeu-se de pesquisa bibliográfica e pesquisa documental. Os resultados apontam que a luta pela terra e pela reforma agrária, responsável por regularizações fundiárias e desapropriações, culminou na criação de 426 assentamentos, com 23.670 famílias assentadas. O latifúndio detém 62% da área e 6,10% dos imóveis rurais em Goiás. Já os minifúndios e as pequenas propriedades controlam 76,23‬% das propriedades e 17,93% da área dos imóveis.

Palavras-chave: Estrutura fundiária; Campesinato; Latifundiário; Reforma agrária

Introduction

I say: The real is neither at the departure nor at the arrival: it is available to us, indeed, amid the crossing. Guimarães Rosa, 2001, p. 80 (our translation)

This text originates from the research project Os paridos da terra estranhos em sua própria casa: cercamentos camponeses em Goiás, 2021 a 2023 [Children of the land strangers in their own home: peasant enclosures in Goiás, 2021 to 2023], conducted at the State University of Goiás, in the academic master's degree program in geography at the Cora Coralina campus. Capitalist private ownership of land is the product of class-based social relations, of strategies used to obtain it (Motta; Secreto, 2011). It is not an unhistorical fact, stripped of social production. Fences involve blood and tears and elimination of peasants, quilombolas and indigenous people. Equally, it involves exploitation, contradiction and curtailment of the right to land.

The numbers are relevant and prove the nature of the land structure, but do not explain the phenomenon in its condition of social process. It is necessary to scrutinize the historiography of private property and understand the mediations and the content underlying its constitution. In Goiás, what is revealed when we explore the mediations, the content underlying the conformation of capitalist private ownership of land? Historically, is there an institutional creation of peasants disinherited of land? Is there institutional mediation in the formation of the latifundium? How are these situations presented in the land structure of Goiás?

The objective of the text is to present the contemporary land structure of Goiás and discuss historical mediations underlying its constitution. To this end, we carried out a bibliographic research, with location, survey, reading and filing of references of concepts concerning the subject. In addition, we conducted a documentary research and internet research, with download of data from the National Rural Registration System (SNCR) and from the Directorate of Land Acquisition and Settlement Project Implementation (DT), belonging to the National Institute of Colonization and Agrarian Reform (INCRA).

In the tabulation, rural property data were organized into minifundia, small properties, and large properties, with values for the area and for the number of units on the municipal scale, through the parameter of fiscal module. In the text, there are no values for medium properties. The settlements were arranged according to the number of projects and families settled on a municipal scale. The tabulation was succeeded by the preparation of the maps. In the exposure method, there is a multiscalar presentation of the data, with attention to the state, regional, and municipal scales. The aim was to highlight inequalities, similarities, combinations and contradictions in the development and formation of the private ownership of land. The article is divided into two sections: the first presents the distribution of the large property and of the minifundia; the second presents the location of the settlements and of the small property.

Private ownership of land in the state of Goiás: distribution of latifundia and minifundia

Map 1 shows the number and area of large rural properties in the state of Goiás on the municipal scale. There is a greater concentration of area by landowners in the northern, northwestern, eastern and southern mesoregions. In the north, of the total area in hectares that hold the different classes of property, latifundia concentrates 62% and 6.10% of rural properties; in the northwest, these numbers are 61.48% and 9.48%; in the east, 52.74% and 6.14%, and, in the south, 51.14% and 7.74%. The center differs from this situation: large properties are 35.79% of the area and rural properties in the mesoregion are 3.32%.

In Goiás, large properties are 6.22% of rural properties and concentrate 53.75% of the total: in absolute data, there are 19,637 properties that hold 31,228,476.30 ha. In the north, in Cavalcante, latifundia controls 21.40% of the properties and 80.16% of the area; in Niquelândia, it holds 5.98% of the properties and 82.26% of the lands; in Porangatu, it concentrates 7.86% of the properties and 55.61% of the surface; in Nova Roma, it dominates 9.94% of the units and 59.72% of the land; and in São João D'Aliança it holds 11.30% and 57.33%, respectively.

In the northwest, in Nova Crixás, latifundia concentrates 29.38% of the properties and 75.04% of the land; in São Miguel do Araguaia they are 12.20% of the properties and 71.48% of the area of the properties; in Crixás they are 7.71% of the rural properties and 65.85% of the surface; in Jussara, large properties are 9.44% of the properties and 67.93% of the area; and in Montes Claros de Goiás, 18.17% and 65.21%, in that order. In the east, in Cristalina, latifundia concentrate 15.51% of the rural properties and 61.98% of the land; in Formosa, 7.02% of the properties and 61.40% of the area; in Padre Bernardo, 10.12% of the properties and 62.30% of the surface; in São Domingos, 7.11% of the properties and 52.45% of the land; in Flores de Goiás, 10.82% of the units and 72.70% of the area.

In the south, in Caiapônia, latifundia control 9.70% of the rural properties and 52.03% of the area; in Mineiros, they own 11.31% of the properties and 58.19% of the land; in Serranópolis, 22.04% and 75.82%; in Jataí, 9.82% and 52.31%; and, in Rio Verde, 9.75% and 55.80% of the area, in that order. In the center, the municipalities with the highest land concentration are Goianésia, Ivolândia, Barro Alto, and Itapaci, which respectively hold 8.22%, 11.06%, 11.35%, 6.4% of the properties and 55.95%, 55.11%, 62.68%, 42.18% of the area. In the state of Goiás, Niquelândia and Cavalcante are the municipalities with the highest land concentration: in the first, latifundia hold 82% of the land; in the second, 80%.

Map 1 -
state of Goiás - number and area of large properties on the municipal scale - 2018

Land structure is the determined, transitory state of the correlation of forces woven by social classes in space-time. Its production is the result of historical struggles, of tensions (Motta; Secreto, 2011). In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and, as a rule, in the twentieth century, the legal State in Goiás was mere fiction - the oligarchies almost always operated contrary to the law. The land was dominated according to class determinations (Alencar, 1993): physical or paramilitary force, “machismo,” “angriness” and a supposed virility up to the “shotgun barrel” were mediations to obtain private ownership of the land, and all this with the institutional consent of primitive accumulation. Oligarchies also expanded their domains with purchase, inheritance, and intraclass marriages. Latifundia were configured as reserves of value (Aguiar, 2000).

The oligarch's intention was to control territorial income (Maia, 2011), achieved with the assumption of State power. The province of Goiás was controlled by clans of Portuguese origin, such as the Fleury and Jardim families (Aguiar, 2000). In it, sesmarias [granted lands] were small, while requirements, concessions, confirmations were scarce, in addition to the observation of land plot sizes measuring three leagues long and one wide after the 18th century (Silva, M., 2000). In the region, arbitrary possession and huge plots of land were advocated; wealthy squatters became cattle ranchers, mill owners and speculators; land size was determined by occupation of cattle herd (Silva, M., 2000; Borba, 2018).

A small portion of them requested land grants from the Portuguese State; others abandoned them. The measured and confirmed sesmarias used unusual techniques, such as filling the pipe, walking at a pace with the horse and, having burned all the tobacco, determining a league (Silva, M., 2000). Land Law No. 601, regulated by Regulation No. 1,318, required the confirmation of the land grant registries and the validation of the possessions held until 1854. It was executed according to the presidents of the provinces, the rich squatters, their slaveholding interests, and the income earned from land exploitation (Maia, 2011; Borba, 2018).

In the Old Republic, oligarchic interest remained, with the transfer of derelict lands to the states. In addition to that, there was Coronelism, with the politics of governors, their pacts, commitments, influence peddling, their objection to opposition through the verification of powers (Campos, 1983). This established control of the executive, legislative, judicial branches and engendered the absolute power of oligarchs, called coronéis (colonels). They constituted potent supporters of sanctions, actions, legislation favorable to oligarchy.

In Goiás, at that time, tax collection was held by landowners, land taxes were negligible, and there was opposition to circulation infrastructures. Attempts at moralization and effective establishment of institutionality were rejected. In the Xavierist domain, the prohibition of fiscal indulgences aroused the anger of the colonels of the north and south of Goiás, who mustered “trusted men” and advanced to the capital (Campos, 1983). The “revolution” of 1909 secured the interests of the cattle oligarchy.

Another expression of the absolute power of colonels in the early twentieth century was the judicial matter. The conflict involved the executive and judicial branches due to the concession of 1,071,476 ha on the banks of the Araguaia River to Antônio Caiado (Pereira, 2006). According to this author, Antônio Caiado's brother, Brasil Ramos Caiado, proposed the modification of Law No. 725, which imposed payment of procedural costs and demarcation of the area, an intention denied by the Court of Justice of Goiás (TJ-GO). The dispute resulted in an increased number of judges and the division of the Court of Justice of Goiás into the civil and criminal jurisdictions, which allowed oligarchic control of the Goiás judicial branch.

In addition, there were agrarian laws of the interregnum from 1890 to 1930, such as Law No. 28, known as the Goiás Land Law, suppressed by Law No. 134, or Law No. 735, of 1919. These laws privileged the agrarian oligarchy, and also failed to comply with the provisions of the Regulation of Land Law No. 1,318, since the notaries public recognized as legitimate ownership documents the parish registration or purchase and sale contracts subsequent to this regulation.

Brazil entered the regime of urban-industrial accumulation through the Prussian path of capitalist development (Borba, 2018).

Fractions of the urban-industrial bourgeoisie allied themselves with the agrarian oligarchy, and State power was handed over to opposing oligarchical fractions (Pereira, 2006). According to the author, the power bloc formed in Goiás after 1930 was constituted in southern Goiás, specifically in Rio Verde. Dissatisfied with Caiadismo, oligarch Martins Borges and his son-in-law Pedro Ludovico went to opposition and allied themselves with the merchant bourgeoisie of the Triângulo Mineiro, which legitimized them to power in the Vargas government.

From 1930 to 1964, the Ludovico oligarchy did not change the land structure. Contradictorily, Laws No. 52, No. 313, No. 3,059, and articles 141 and 136 of the 1947 State Constitution considered its revision. However, the constitutional articles were not implemented, and Law No. 52 was not regulated (Campos, 2015). On the other hand, constitutional article 150 and Law No. 1,067 were effectively implemented as per oligarchic interests. In the military dictatorship, the Caiado and Lage oligarchies contended within the National Democratic Union (UDN) over control of Goiás in the military offices of Brasília (Pereira, 2006).

With the political opening, Mauro Borges, an ally of Henrique Santillo, and Íris Resende, agreed with Derval de Paiva, contended for control of the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB). The greater capacity for regimentation ensured the domination of Iris, who faced the Caiado and Lage oligarchies, clustered in the Social Democratic Party (PDS). Despite intraclass schisms, these groups represented conservative interests of oligarchs. The Marconist period (1999-2018) maintained oligarchic interests with a veneer of modernization, developmentalism and strategic planning.

Currently, Ronaldo Caiado radicalizes such interests. The analysis of Goiás politics proves that, historically, fractions of the agrarian oligarchy alternated in power. The control of capitalist ownership of land enabled the domination of the territory. In Goiás, there is a deliberate ideological social imaginary of the farmer, conceived as a producer of space, honest, laborious and cupid and, therefore, holder of immense properties.

This symbolic capture, which legitimizes material control, is expressed, for example, in the icon of a man riding a horse² in the Cívica square, a nuclear point of State power. The ideology of labor permeates social classes and groups, which understand that land ownership results from laborious work. Considered successful and intelligent men, landowners are legitimized as competent and efficient for state government. There underlies the understanding that material wealth is synonymous with labor and that the capitalist promise of bonanza is feasible for everyone.

The power of the State means dominance of the social legitimacy of action, sanction, public policy, and regulation of space. In Goiás, the state is oligarchic because it enables the businesses of the agrarian oligarchy. In Brazil, land grabbing is a historical instrument of land appropriation. Grileiros [land grabbers], in cahoots with servants, notaries public of real estate notary public offices, judges, prosecutors, deputies, delegates, lawyers, settled in solidarity networks, in bribes, legalize the illegal (Motta, 2001; Campos, 2015; Maia, 2011).

According to the authors, in Goiás, there is the phenomena of "walking fences," changed names of rivers and mountains, documents forged in an oven with the use of leaves of assa-peixe (Vernonia polysphaera) and crickets, written and stamped with old inks and seals. Furthermore, there are fabricated succession chains: former landowners conceive children in the schemes of notary public offices. According to Motta (2001), it is stated in the White Paper on land grabbing in Brazil that, in 1999, 100 million hectares were suspected of land grabbing in the national territory, of which 1,306,363 ha would be located in Goiás.

Borba (2018) mentions, also in Goiás, the so-called “strange caravan,” a land grabbing group led by João Inácio. Its members called themselves officers of the “Ministry of Old Things,” which legitimized access to parishes to gather sheets of the parish record book, as was done in the district of Carmo, in Porto Nacional. At that time, the practice of squatting was widespread in the state, especially in the north; the purpose of the land grabbers was to obtain parish registrations and old letters granting sesmarias, forge succession chains, fabricate property titles and force poor squatters out (Borba, 2018).

The author mentions João Inácio's actions in Porangatu, Pirenópolis and neighboring states, proven by a parliamentary commission of inquiry in 1960. He also claims the (in)action of the governors José Feliciano and José Ludovico about discriminatory actions to verify land titles and inattention as to the operation of real estate brokers and land grabbers in the Department of Lands and Colonization of Goiás (DTC-GO). Moreover, there were accusations of derelict land grabbing favoring political allies and landowners.

The complaints in the DTC-GO implied the creation of the Institute of Lands and Colonization of Goiás (Idago) in 1960; however, Mauro Borges did not advance in the investigation of suspicious land titles, favored land speculation, and the agrarian issue was suppressed by technical issues (Borba, 2018). In the military regime, the pacts of speculators and land grabbers with international capitalists, such as Stanley Amos Selig, by requesting land in the name of third parties and employing land grabbing, enabled the forced expropriation of derelict lands.

In the first decades of the 21st century, the Brazilian land policy favorable to the agrarian oligarchy is manifested in Laws No. 422/2008, No. 558/2009 and No. 13,465/2017 and in Bill No. 191/2020 (Alentejano, 2020). The first two were part of the Terra Legal Program, an instrument created in the Lula government that facilitated and increased the limit of land regularization in the Amazon to 1,500 ha. The third increased this number to 2,500 ha, with installments and derisory payment in 20 years, a grace period of three years to start to pay and reduced interest.

In turn, Law No. 191/2020, valid throughout Brazil, reaffirms 2,500 hectares subject to regularization and exempts inspection. It is also based on the self-declaration of the rich squatter, extends the initial occupation period to 2018, and grants regularization of one more property per holder (Alentejano, 2020). In Goiás, Law No. 18,826/2015 provides for derelict lands, charges for the value of bare land and administrative procedures, and regularizes areas of up to 1,000 ha (Silva, E., 2021). This legislation reiterates the valorization of capitalist private property.

Campos (2015) and Borba (2018) mention the historical lack of control of derelict lands, collusion with land grabbers, and non-enforcement of agrarian legislation in Goiás. Maia (2011) understands that the State participated in the cleaning of the grabbed areas and supported the forced ousting of poor squatters. Maria Aparecida Daniel da Silva (2000) claims that a mindset of unlimited power of the landowner persists in Goiás, with absolute ownership of the land. In other words, it underlies the building of the latifundiary system, contents of primitive accumulation, ensured by paramilitary power and by the State's legal allowance of forced expropriation of derelict lands.

The modernization of the territory with railways and highways, the construction of Goiânia and Brasília and the construction of hydroelectric plants raised land income (Campos, 2015; Pereira, 2006). The Prussian path of capitalist development, with a class pact, led to the endorsement of latifundia as a reserve of value. Supported by the “conservative modernization,” the agricultural policy enabled an alleged modernization of the latifundiary system.

Public policies such as the National Rural Credit System (SNCR), the Cerrado Development Program (Polocentro), the Japanese-Brazilian Cooperation Program for Cerrado Agricultural Development (Prodecer) constituted the set of conditions effecting the viability of the latifundiary system. In Goiás, it should also be noted the Constitutional Fund of the Central-West (FCO) and the Promotion of Industrialization of the State of Goiás (Fomentar).

The agricultural policy increased land concentration, banished sharecroppers, tenant farmers to provisional campsites, to medium-sized and metropolitan urban centers (Campos, 2015; Ferreira; Mendes, 2009). On the mesoregional scale, the formation of latifundia in southern Goiás occurred mainly in the late 19th century, with tax exemption and validation of the “just war” against the indigenous peoples (Alencar, 1993). The physiographic conditions, the geographical position in relation to the Southeast, the provision of circulation infrastructure and the advance of livestock farming were also contributing factors.

Maia (2011) adds that huge areas were regularized by purchase and sale contracts and active land market was driven by coffee expansion. After 1970, many “traditional” farmers from the south negotiated their latifundia with persons from Paraná, Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catarina. In the north, land grabbing, the furor for land appropriation, was simultaneous with the endowment for urban and circulation infrastructures, such as the construction of Brasília and BR-153, although before that there were already latifundia resulting from the mining and livestock periods (Aguiar, 2000).

In the center and east, the formation of latifundia was also concomitant with the extraction of alluvial gold. Livestock farming was the activity that intensified the formation of enormous holdings. In the east, huge sesmarias and holdings were constituted by the advance of cattle ranching in the San Francisco Valley (Bertran, 1994). Many of these latifundia were negotiated with miners and Paulistas during the twentieth century, especially during the period of the March to the West and the construction of Brasília.

The subsequent fragmentation of many of such latifundia was due to urbanization, the concentration of circulation and communication infrastructures and family division. In the northwest, physiographic conditions and circulation infrastructures shaped the region of “Estrada do Boi” [cattle road]. According to Barreira (1997), the initial occupation was conducted by northeasterners, traditional cattle breeders. The pioneering front was achieved with Goiás people from the south and center of the state and with miners and Paulistas who installed latifundia, pasture monoculture and modern livestock farming.

Modern livestock farming triggered the construction of the GO-164 state highway, which connected the mesoregion to national and international markets, raised land income and boosted land speculation. Contradictorily, minifundia represent the derisory dimension of land ownership, which can prevent peasant reproduction. To paraphrase Chayanov (1974), it represents the imbalance of the land, labor and capital elements. Map 2 shows their distribution in Goiás on a municipal scale. These properties control 3.53% of the area of the different classes of property; on the other hand, they represent 42.14% of the properties.

In absolute numbers, there are 133,053 rural properties in an area of 2,393,743.88 ha. On the mesoregional scale, the east of Goiás holds 2.18% of the area and 49.83% of the number of production units. In the south, 3.31% of the area and 35.62% of the properties; in the center, 8.19% of the area and 49.31% of the properties; in the northwest, 3.81% of the area and 36.24% of the production units; and, in the north, respectively, 3.25% and 40.72%. In the center, minifundia are significant in Bela de Vista de Goiás, with 68.98% of the properties and 21.02% of the area, in São Luís de Montes Belos, with 62.25% and 15.67%, in Itapuranga, with 53.42% and 12.28%, in Anápolis, with 52.67% and 8.63%, and in Jaraguá with 41% and 6.15%, in that order (Map 2).

In the northwest, Goiás, with 48.89% of the properties and 8.38% of the area, Faina, with 39.68% and 6.97%, Piranhas, with 37.36% and 4.43%, Jussara, with 43.26% and 3.20%, and Crixás, with 37.75% and 3.06%, in that order, are the most prominent municipalities. In the north, in Mara Rosa, minifundia are 48.94% of the properties and 9.53% of the area, in Uruaçu, 46.84% and 9.38%, in Minaçu, 43.40% and 7.58%, in Porangatu, 37.65% and 3.40%, and in Niquelândia, 39.16% and 1.37%, respectively. In the south, Orizona concentrates 51.72% of the properties and 11.96% of the area, Morrinhos, 46.69% and 8.52%, Silvânia, 45.83% and 7.11%, Catalão, 42.96% and 5.67%, and Piracanjuba, 42.50% and 6.94, in that order.

In the east, in Buritinópolis, minifundia correspond to 83.77% of the rural properties and hold 27.53% of the area, in Damianópolis, 71.85% and 19.88%, in Novo Gama, 79.35% and 13.11%, in Águas Lindas de Goiás, 67.80% and 16.76%, and in Abadiânia, 66.44% and 15.77%, respectively. The hypotheses for the unequal distribution of minifundia involve aspects of land income, the latifundium-minifundium binomial, the capital-labor relation, and the phenomenon of second residence. In the southern, central and eastern mesoregions, specifically in the microregion around Brasília, the presence of export monocultures, dense circulation and communication networks, medium-sized and metropolitan urban centers, and favorable physiographic conditions raise land income. Minifundiary peasants lease their land to agribusiness agents, given their impossibility of acquiring plots from family members and neighbors.

Map 2 -
state of Goiás - number and area of minifundia on the municipal scale - 2018

In the south, numerous minifundia are leased for the production of cereals and sugarcane. Others survive subaltern to small agribusiness, use the technological package of multinational corporations, being integrated into the chains of poultry, milk, pork. In the municipalities of the metropolitan areas, which host medium-sized cities, a belt of supply of vegetables and dairy products is consolidated. As a hypothesis, these would be the cases of the metropolitan areas of Brasília, Goiânia, of the medium-sized urban centers of Catalão, Jataí, Rio Verde, Itumbiara, Anápolis, of municipalities around Brasília.

Minifundiary peasants benefit from the differential income I. The location in relation to the market and, to a lesser extent, the quality of the soils guarantee social reproduction. These families are functional for capitalism: they suffer from the monopolization of the territory by capital (Oliveira, 1995) and produce fruit and vegetables, breed small animals, manufacture dairy and sugarcane products, marketed at open markets, family farm street markets, supermarket chains, fruit shops, bakeries, snack bars and at the Supply Centers of Goiás (Ceaasa).

Assured by land income, it is stated that the condition of minifundiary peasants in the north, specifically in the microregion of Chapada dos Veadeiros, is diametrically opposed to that of these subjects in the Center, for example, in the microregion of Goiânia. Minifundia owners are also associated with a universe of subjects from the middle class who have a bucolic social view of the countryside, or see it as a leisure space. As Williams (1989) states, they conceive this spatial form as an expression of peace, innocence, simple virtue, refuge, salvation, the place of gentle persons, escape from the violence and supposed chaos of metropolitan urban centers, aversion toward the urban-industrial way of life.

Furthermore, there is the memory of past life in the countryside, the desire to experience flavors, smells, sounds, sensations experienced in childhood/adolescence provided by rural life. This promotes an active real estate market, which negotiates small areas near lakes of hydroelectric plants, flowing rivers or places of scenic landscapes, which configures the phenomenon of second residence. In the north, northwest and east, especially in the micro-region of Vão do Paranã, as well as in the other mesoregions, the minifundiary system is often recreated in the capital-labor relation by the lending of workforce to neighboring landowners or rural “entrepreneurs” producing commodities.

It is peasantry recreated as a worker for the capitalist for a very low remuneration (Martins, 1986a). Minifundia provide temporary workers for the process of modernization of agriculture in Goiás (Pereira, 2006). Martins (1986a) informs that capital invades peasant property, removes from it the arms with greater vitality, introduces female and early childhood labor in agricultural production, which guarantees the reproduction of the peasant and, contradictorily, of the worker for capital. Cheap peasant labor, in their condition as workers, occurs because its reproduction is not mediated by wages alone.

In the east, north and northwest, minifundia located in the vicinity of urban centers are also recreated by the supply of vegetables, dairy products, the breeding and marketing of small animals. The incidence of minifundia is also associated with the unequal, contradictory and combined historical process of colonization of Goiás territory, advancement of the expansion front and the pioneering front. For example, in mining areas, minifundia were also constituted by the subsequent division of properties (Alencar, 1993). Latifundia and minifundia are expressions of agrarian reform, which must be conducted according to regional/local specificities.

Goiás peasants: toil and struggle in small properties and settlements

Map 3 shows the distribution of small properties on a municipal scale. In the state of Goiás, these properties correspond to 34.09% of the different property classes and hold 14.40% of the area, in absolute data there are 315,697 units that concentrate 58,096,266 ha. On the mesoregional scale, in the north they concentrate 36.46% of the properties and 12.45% of the area, in the south, 35.73% and 14.94%, in the northwest, 33.36% and 10.16%, in the east, 27.40% and 12.99%, in the center, 34.47% and 24.72%, in that order. In Goiás, minifundia and small properties control 76.23%.

On the mesoregional scale, in the east these property classes hold 77.23% of the production units and 15.17% of the area, in the south, 71.35% and 18.25%, in the center, 83.78% and 32.91%, in the northwest, 69.6% and 13.97%, in the north, 77.18% and 15.7%, in this order. In the east, in Luziânia, small properties represent 33.50% of the different property classes and 20.43% of the area, in Pirenópolis, 26.13% and 23.79%, in São Domingos, 31.23% and 14.59%, in Cristalina, 33.30% and 8.37%, respectively. In the north, in Uruaçu small properties are 38.98% and have 34.43% of the area; in Minaçu, 42.18% and 27.34%; in Mara Rosa, 36.81% and 26.76%, and, in Nova Roma, 39.64% and 14.23%, in that order.

In the center, in Bela Vista de Goiás, small properties concentrate 25.47% of properties and 42.30% of the area; in Iporá these percentages are 41.73% and 35.98%; in Itapuranga, 33.96% and 30.43%, and in Hidrolândia, 27% and 29.06%. In the northwest, in Faina, small units are 40% of rural properties and 27.60% of the area; in Goiás, these percentages are 33.22% and 21.92%; in São Miguel do Araguaia, 30% and 21%, and, in Piranhas, 38% and 18.59%. In the south, in Orizona, small properties hold 36.43% of the properties and 37.68% of the area; in Morrinhos, 37.38% and 29.11%; in Piracanjuba, 38.56% and 27%, and in Silvânia, 36.36% and 25.16%.

Map 3 -
state of Goiás - number and area of small properties on a municipal scale - 2018

It is conjectured that the historical reproduction of small properties involves the twenty-year division of large and medium-sized properties, the agrarian policies of the State, the functional re-creation of peasants, the struggle for land and agrarian reform, the raise in land income and the transfer of plots as payment for loyalty pacts. In the colonial period, in mining areas, freed slaves, employees loyal to their masters received donations of land of half a league in block (Aguiar, 2000; Borba, 2018).

Peasants with land were represented by squatters: enslaved "freedmen," mestizos, bastards, poor whites with grass ranches built on derelict wastelands, with crops for self-consumption, conducted with scarce technical instruments (Campos, 2015; Silva, M., 2000). As determined social subjects, they were subjected to the legal precedence of the sesmaria land grant over squatting (Martins, 1986b). The squatter is the subject in the fringes, in the margins of colonization. Motta (2001) understands them as anonymous subjects of a history of banishment that question the legality of the latifundiary system.

In the 20th century, the center-north and north of Goiás became spaces for the re-creation of the squatter, which increased the number of small properties between 1920 and 1960 (Borba, 2018). Requests filed in the state alleging the derelict nature of the lands, as opposed to the absolute right, were used in the struggle for land regularization, aspects neglected by the agrarian oligarchy. Despite the fact that, with the struggle on the land in Trombas and Formoso, the state of Goiás acquired the Onça farm and regularized 343 properties, with squatters paying Cr$ 1,000,000.00 per holding.

However, the “favor residents,” in greater numbers, were historically exploited by the latifundiary system and orbited around the colonel, who used them politically and subjected them to exploitation for income in labor, money and product (Lisita, 1996; Ferreira; Mendes, 2009). In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and, as a rule, in the twentieth century, the land holder determined the labor in the field in Goiás. The tenant peasant formed the “stump field,” managed the cattle herd and paid for using the land with pastures, calf breeding and cereals production.

Small properties were also formed due to colonization projects, such as the National Agricultural Colony of Goiás (Cang), or state plans, such as in Itapirapuã, Rubiataba, Santa Cruz and in the district of Colônia de Uvá (Goiás), or agri-urban combinations under the Mauro Borges administration (Borba, 2018; Campos, 2015). It is evident that the initial boom was suppressed by frustration, and the poor conditions for production resulted in abandonment of projects, revolts and land reconcentration.

There was also the rebellion of the Trombas and Formoso Movement, in Goianésia, at the São Carlos farm, in addition to conflicts between squatters and land grabbers in Porangatu, Santa Tereza, Jussara, Britânia, Novo Brasil, Pilar de Goiás, São Miguel do Araguaia, Itapuranga, Baliza, Itapaci, Ceres and Planaltina, which led to land regularizations (Campos, 2015; Borba, 2018).

The peasantry acted as a class, both by peasant leagues, associations, guerrilla struggles, trade unions, and social movements. In the 1960s, the peasantry organized the guerrilla training camp in Dianópolis, coordinated by the Goiás Association of Rural Workers (AGTC), a revolutionary sector of the peasant leagues (Borba, 2018).

The peasantry also participated in the National Congress of Farmers and held the Regional Conference of Ceres, occasions in which it proposed radical agrarian reform through armed struggle, a project contrary to that of the Catholic Church, of the Brazilian Communist Party (PCB) and of the Mauro Borges administration. This class was forced out, victimized by murder and death threats, tortured, evicted, assaulted, humiliated and disqualified. This set of violent actions with State endorsement resulted in primitive accumulation. Most holdings were converted into part of latifundia. The modernization of the territory increased land income, which also restricted peasant social reproduction and, contradictorily, converted medium landowners into peasants.

In Goiás, the spatial form of small property developed underlain by class conflicts, (in)action of agrarian policies of the state, and peasant family economy strategies. The unequal, combined and contradictory process of capitalist development, which converts peasants into functional subjects to capitalism in certain spaces, even holding small areas and, contradictorily, ousts them into others where the agrarian oligarchy is interested in production and speculation. Goiás peasants supply the domestic market, purchase consumer goods, provide cheap labor and boost municipal economies.

In the municipalities of Goiás, peasants sell produce, surviving on polyculture or integrated into agro-industrial chains as suppliers of agri-food empires. In addition, there are networks that are dissident from the agronegocinho [small agribusiness], which coordinate network territories through the use of the technical-scientific-informational system and create groups of agroecological peasant baskets through the WhatsApp application.

There are also peasants who are recreated by the Communities that Support Agriculture (CSA). Somehow, they constitute geo-graphies of the peasantry, opposed to the geo-graphy of agribusiness. The universe of small properties comprise agrarian reform settlements. Map 4 shows their distribution in the Goiás territory. In 2020, there were 426 settlements with 23,670 families settled. It should be noted that the last information corresponds to the families effectively established on the land, as opposed to the settlement capacity of the agrarian reform project, which increases the number of families served.

On the mesoregional scale, the north concentrates 19.95% of the settlements and 18.39% of the settled families, in the northwest these percentages are 24.41% and 20.49%, in the east 25.35% and 41.48%, in the south 20.89% and 14.03% and in the center 9.38% and 5.59%, respectively. In absolute values, the east concentrates 108 settlements and 9,820 settled families. In the northwest, these numbers are 104 and 4,850, in the south, 89 and 3,321, in the north, 85 and 4,354 and in the center 40 settlements and 1,325 families served. In the state of Goiás, the municipality of Goiás is the largest municipality in number of settlements: 24. However, Formosa, located in the east, concentrates the largest number of families served: 2,937.

Map 4 -
state of Goiás - number of settlements and settled families on a municipal scale - 1985 to 2020

In the north, the municipalities with the largest number of settlements are Montividiu do Norte, Niquelândia, Porangatu and São João D'Aliança, with 13, 11, 10 and 8 agrarian reform projects, respectively. Regarding the number of settled families, São João D'Aliança, Montividiu do Norte, Porangatu and Minaçu have 661, 655, 580 and 438. In the center, Itaberaí stands out, with six settlements, and Fazenda Nova, Santa Rita do Novo Destino and Heitoraí, with five agrarian reform projects, with the first three municipalities having 223, 190 and 143 families served. In turn, in Goianésia there are 215 families benefited.

In the east, Flores de Goiás, Formosa, Cristalina, and Padre Bernardo have 22, 17, and 9 settlements respectively. The first two have 1,325 and 2,937 settled families, respectively, while Planaltina and Cristalina have 802 and 596 families served. In the south, Doverlândia, Caiapônia, Rio Verde and Jataí stand out, with 15, 12, 9 and 6 settlements and 514, 555, 376 and 415 settled families. The settlements constituted in Goiás occupy 1,342,597.89 ha, created mainly in the 1990s and 2000s.

After 2010, there was a decrease in the public policy of agrarian reform, and after 2015, only 14 projects were built in Goiás, two of which correspond to the titles granted for quilombola territories in northern Goiás, in Barro Alto and Cavalcante, with 898 families occupying 263,813 ha. In the settlements, 417 families were territorialized into 12,493.99 ha, located mainly in the northwest and east mesoregions.

In the 1950s, the José Feliciano administration suggested the establishment of agricultural colonies in the north of the state (Borba, 2018). Mauro Borges included in the government plan a proposal for Christian and democratic agrarian reform, represented by colonization projects. According to Pereira (2006) and Borba (2018), these projects converged with the interests of landowners and of the urban bourgeoisie, which were the privilege of the northern derelict lands, with the creation of agri-urban combinations inspired by the experiences of colonization and cooperativism of the Israeli kibbutzim and moshavim.

The proposal did not interfere in high-income areas and served the urban economy, reducing costs with raw materials and variable capital. As in the central capitalist countries, with agrarian reform, the urban bourgeoisie could extract income from the land. In Brazil and Goiás, the proposal mobilized reactionary sectors opposed to agrarian reform, grouped in the UDN, in the Social Democratic Party (PSD) and rural employers' organizations.

In the correlation of forces, the agrarian oligarchy ensured the modernization of the latifundiary system by devising a class pact and dividing the land profit and income with the urban bourgeoisies. Land monopoly represented a historical obstacle to the advance of urban/industrial capitalism, the interception of land income was conducted in Europe and the USA by supporting small properties, with the implementation of agrarian reform (Amin; Vergopoulos, 1977).

What is meant is that, by the monopoly of land, landowners have historically guaranteed the right to speculation on the market. Peasants had to use all the land at their disposal, they are price takers, they produce regardless of the market situation, motivated by social reproduction. That is why agrarian reform does not eliminate the monopolization of territory by capital. Urban capitalists almost always maintain the capture of land income.

In Brazil, capitalism was materialized by the alliance of the modern with the backward; industrialists became landowners (Martins, 1986b). Therefore, despite the industrialization of Brazilian agriculture, with the creation of the income of monopoly of life and death, expressed in the royalties of seed germplasms and in the molecules of active principles of pesticides, added to the manufacture of the soil and the industrial patents of heavy mechanization created by financial/industrial monopoly capitalism, the land monopoly imposes itself on the interception of part of the land income (Silva, E., 2021).

Supported by multinational corporations, even as consumers of technological packages, landowners appropriate public funds from the State both to acquire the technological package and to provide circulation infrastructure, store and industrialize production. It turns out that it is not the “pop, tech, all-pervasive agribusiness” that produces the space of the countryside and of the cities adjacent to the monocultures. Domination of the land leads to domination of the territory, of the national State, which manages the budget, regulations and exchange policy, and the agrarian environmental policy in favor of the interests of the agrarian oligarchy, in a pact with the urban bourgeoisies.

This class coalition implied, for example, that, in the 1960s, Mauro Borges also repressed the squatters, since Idago did not regularize the required holdings. He also joined the agrarian reform written by the Alliance for Progress and by the Institute for Social Research and Studies (Ipes), with the proposal of modernizing the latifundiary system and creating specific projects in spaces of conflict (Borba, 2018). He also signed the “Charter of Araxá,” a document written by 16 conservative governors, who agreed with the fight against communism and the execution of the agrarian counter-reform.

The post-1964 Land Statute emptied the struggle of the social movements of the countryside, favored the rural enterprise, the auction of public lands, such that agrarian reform lost strength as an instrument of implementation of urban-industrial capitalism. In Brazil and in the countryside of Goiás, the concentrated land structure results in concentration of power, wealth and denial of democracy. Landowners are always on the “chair” or “rubbing elbows with” State power. As for the settlements established in Goiás, most are far from the main circulation networks; the selective use and appropriation of space implies marginalized subjects and regions (Silva, E., 2021).

According to this author, it constitutes an unequal geographical space, the center-south and the microregion around Brasília become core areas of Goiás grain agribusiness, in which there are the largest expenditures in circulation and communication networks, which results in increased land income. Also, despite the manufacture of soils, natural characteristics are important determinations in the choice of cultivation sites. In the center-south, physiographic conditions are superior for commodity production. Land income determines “places” chosen for settlements and privileged spaces for agribusiness.

According to Silva, E. (2021), in the north-northwest of Goiás and in the micro-region of Vão do Paranã, the implementation of absolute land income and the creation of cheap labor incubators combine to create agrarian reform projects. In the northwest and center of Goiás, the constituted settlements also resulted from the action of the church in the walk post-1970 and the union opposition, in the south they resulted from the social movements' confrontation of agribusiness, especially with the crisis of the sector in 1990. The struggle for land and agrarian reform arises in areas of high land income, but, as a rule, settlements were built in places of lower land income.

Final considerations

The scrutiny of the Goiás land structure and the analysis of the mediations and contents underlying its conformation reveal the legal State almost as a mere piece of fiction. Property was achieved by paramilitary apparatuses and physical coercion. Jaguncismo [employmet of goons], extermination groups and hired killers constituted in Goiás the militarization that is characteristic of the Prussian path. Land grabbing also represented the plundering and barbarism consented to by the State. The control of land income ensured the dominance of the territory.

All this enabled oligarchic business, the intellectual conduct of the exploited classes and the idealization of the subjects of the ruling class. It is understood that there was no historical non-enforcement of agrarian legislation; it was applied to defend the interests of oligarchic fractions.

The aim was to reproduce absolute ownership of land, with unlimited power of landowners. Territory modernization did not eliminate the backwardness, which was caused by the pact with oligarchic factions. If in Brazil the urban-industrial model was implemented through the Prussian path, in Goiás, it occurred through oligarchic hands; there were no hegemonic industrial agents, but dissident fractions within the agrarian oligarchy.

Thus, development was uneven, combined and contradictory, instituting unequal moments and events for the formation of latifundia. It is noted that the large property as a class of rural property is characteristic of Goiás. This deliberate institutional mediation consolidated the instrumental besiege of the peasantry. Peasant labor was subjected, the confrontation resulted in institutional barbarism, with fences erected over clandestine cemeteries, houses and fields destroyed. Contradictorily, regularizations and expropriations took place in the wake of peasant pressures.

Small properties and minifundia were also reproduced by leasing, by integration into agro-industrial chains, by the twenty-year chain, by the latifundium/minifundium binomial, by the phenomenon of second residence, by dissident networks, and by agrarian policies. The settlements were mediated by land income. The peasants occupied and camped in spaces with high land income; in contrast, they were settled mainly in places with lower land income. In the agribusiness economy, interests in territorial funds imposed the plundering of public and collective lands, which drastically reduced the specific establishment of settlements. The analysis of the historical course of the formation of the land structure in Goiás reveals hegemonic geo-graphies of the latifundiary system, opposed to subalternized geo-graphies of the peasantry.

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• 1
  I would like to thank the Graduate Support Program (PROAP), the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES) and the Graduate Program in Geography (PPGEO), at the State University of Goiás (UEG) for supporting the production and translation of this manuscript.
• 2
  The Doutor Pedro Ludovico Teixeira square, also called Cívica square, is the initial landmark of the building of Goiânia, capital of the state of Goiás, located in the center of the city. There is a statue of Pedro Ludovico Teixeira riding a horse. Despite the mention of its supposed movement in Goiânia at the time of its construction, the symbol reinforces the ideological conception of the bandeirantes, landowners and bugreiros as fundamental agents of production of the Goiás space.

• 3
  Agradeço ao Programa de Apoio à Pós-Graduação (PROAP), da Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) e ao Programa de Pós-Graduação em Geografia (PPGEO), da Universidade Estadual de Goiás (UEG) pelo apoio a produção e tradução deste manuscrito.
• 4
  A Praça Doutor Pedro Ludovico Teixeira, também chamada Praça Cívica, é o marco inicial da edificação de Goiânia, capital do estado de Goiás, localizada no centro da cidade. Está aí a estátua de Pedro Ludovico Teixeira sobre um cavalo. A despeito da menção a seu suposto deslocamento por Goiânia no momento de sua construção, o símbolo reforça a concepção ideológica de bandeirantes, latifundiários e brugreiros como agentes fundamentais de produção do espaço goiano.

Edited by

• Article editor:
  Márcia Yukari Mizusaki

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  08 May 2023
• Date of issue
  2023

History

• Received
  18 July 2022
• Accepted
  18 Nov 2022