A expansão da soja no município de Jaguarão/RS: análise das percepções através da abordagem narrativa

Located in the extreme south of Brazil, the town of Jaguarão shows, in an extensive regime, two traditional livestock vocations: sheep and cattle production. Nevertheless, during the last ten years, there has been an important transformation from a social, landscape, and environmental point of view, as in other places in the Pampa Biome. It is related to the effects produced by the expansion of the cultivated area with the soybean crop, a fact that maybe the reason for the conversion of approximately 37 thousand hectares, predominantly native pastures, in areas dedicated to this culture. In this study, our attention involved two major objectives. The first one was to analyze the socio-environmental impacts of soybean expansion. The second was to reflect on the need for public policies to regulate the planting of this cultivation in Jaguarão. In both cases, we used the narrative approach conducted from interviews with rural producers and other local actors. The existence of two great narrative orientations was verified. On the one hand, the position of actors who argue the need for regulatory policy, on the other, the actors who oppose, claiming that soybean cultivation brings development to Jaguarão and the region.