THE UNEVEN MODERNIZATION OF BRAZILIAN AGRICULTURE FROM 2006 TO 2017

ABSTRACT This article aims to analyze the factors that shape the dynamics of Brazil’s agriculture modernization between 2006 and 2017. This period is characterized by the huge expansion of agricultural production in the country, with a large share of that production driven to foreign markets. Assuming that modernization is a multifaceted phenomenon, 24 variables related to it were calculated for 137 Brazilian mesoregions, and five factors were estimated, which measure: capital/labor ratio (Factor 1), capital/land ratio (Factor 2), the infrastructure and intensity of the institutional support (Factor 3), intensity of the use of inputs by crops (Factor 4) and sustainable land use (Factor 5). The distribution of factor-scores among the Brazilian mesoregions in 2006 and in 2017 is uneven, and the different advances between those two years in the mesoregions reinforce that modernization of the agriculture continues taking place unevenly throughout the Brazilian territory during the first two decades of the 21st century.