Banca de DEFESA: MARINA LOBO GIBSON

Uma banca de DEFESA de MESTRADO foi cadastrada pelo programa.
STUDENT : MARINA LOBO GIBSON
DATE: 06/03/2024
TIME: 10:00
LOCAL: CPDA/UFRRJ
TITLE:

BRAZILIAN AGRIBUSINESS: TOWARDS WORLD FOOD (IN)SECURITY?

KEY WORDS:

Agribusiness; food security; discourse; ABAG

PAGES: 127
BIG AREA: Ciências Humanas
AREA: Sociologia
SUBÁREA: Sociologia Rural
SUMMARY:

In recent years, both in Brazil and around the world, there has been an increase in hunger and food insecurity, which has been particularly aggravated by the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 and, in the case of countries like Brazil, by the deregulations of right-wing governments. Amid this scenario, Brazilian agribusiness, which continues to accumulate export and revenue records, places itself in charge of “feeding the world” and guaranteeing “global food security”, in a dis-course that resembles the international construction of the concept and the debates around the need for countries to develop, associating food security with economic growth and global agri-cultural trade. Faced with this contradiction, between an agribusiness with successive export and revenue records and ever-decreasing levels of food security in Brazil, the aim of this research is to analyze how Brazilian agribusiness constructs its food narrative, based on the concept of global food security, as a way of legitimizing its political actions and reinforcing its importance to the country. The specific objectives are: to analyze the construction of the concept at the international level, based on its association with the debate on development, and its national inser-tion; to understand the context and the ways in which food security was mobilized by Brazilian agribusiness when the sector was first established; and to analyze how food security is currently mobilized by agribusiness, based on its use by the Brazilian Agribusiness Association (ABAG). To achieve these objectives, it was first carried out a literature review on the concepts of agribusiness and food security. Then, as a case study, ABAG was selected. Created in 1993, ABAG was the first intersectoral agribusiness association in the country and was responsible for beginning to build a rhetoric of legitimacy for the sector. At this time, food security began to be mobilized, with the launch, also in 1993, of the book "Food Security: an agribusiness ap-proach", which listed food security as the main social responsibility of agribusiness. The focus of the analysis undertaken was the mobilization of food security at the Brazilian Agribusiness Congress (CBA), an event created in 2002 and promoted annually by ABAG, understood as a space for consolidating and disseminating the sector's discourse. We analyzed the full content of the 21st edition of the CBA, available on ABAG's YouTube channel. Held in 2022, the event took place in a context of increasing food insecurity in Brazil and around the world and in a year of significant elections for the country, in which the debate on hunger was in the spotlight. In-terviews were also conducted with the president of ABAG and two members of the Peasant Women's Movement (MMC). The results of the analysis conclude that Brazilian agribusiness mobilizes food security from a global perspective as a way of legitimizing and garnering politi-cal support for its demands. Focusing on the dimension of production to guarantee food securi-ty, the sector reinforces the need to increase Brazilian agricultural production to feed a growing world population, highlighting the importance of Brazilian trade and exports. In a context of criticism over the increase in deforestation in Brazil under the government of Jair Bolsonaro (2019-2022) and restrictions on the country's exports, mainly by the European Union, the sector mobilizes food security to justify the need to open new markets for Brazilian agribusiness and the importance of the sector in guaranteeing global well-being. The debate on access to food, although recognized, is disconnected from the sector, being listed as a responsibility of govern-ments, through public policies to generate income and employment. Agribusiness therefore recognizes the problem of food insecurity but mobilizes it in such a way as to list the sector as responsible for its solution, disassociating itself from its causes.

COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
Presidente - 1425152 - FABRINA PONTES FURTADO
Interno - ***.064.218-** - RENATO SERGIO JAMIL MALUF - UFRRJ
Externa à Instituição - RAQUEL GRIFFONI PINTO - UFF