Entre o pão e o concreto: os usos do território revelando os pilares de uma terra

Abstract

The research analyses the metamorphosis of food arrangements in Pilar city, located in Alagoas eastern mesoregion, in line with the public actions implemented, the retraction of the sugar-alcohol sector and the real estate market between 2004 and 2007. The spatial clipping investigated, for centuries has been shaped by the sugar cane culture, the maintenance of the latifundio, and more recently, with its retraction, by the speculation of the real estate market through the companies involved in the construction of the numerous housing estates. In its work, bibliographical surveys were carried out, which made it possible to reconstitute Pilar's economic and territorial formation process; were made maps of land use and flow; photographic records; of satellite images and field studies. Satellite images and photographs showed that part of the small local food production, with the retraction of the area occupied by sugar cane and the extinction of remnants of the Atlantic Forest, has been replaced by housing developments and the "progress" of reinforced concrete. The analyzed period was divided in two moments. The first one (2004-2017), corresponding to the apogee of sugar-alcohol production, the expansion of housing estates and the subjugation of local agriculture. In turn, the second period (2015-2018), is related to the reduction of the area of sugar cane and the incentive to food agriculture in leased land. This incentive led to the establishment of working relationships typical of monoculture areas: the worker who pays for the use of land with labor and production. In addition to these, there is also the duly hired worker and others who have been absorbed by their condition of social vulnerability by the Planting the Future Program, able to work on the leases and market part of what they produce with the municipality. The paths taken to analyze the time cut established and the two economic activities mentioned here, understood as hegemonic because of the fluidity of capital involved, led to the construction of a socioeconomic context where, in particular, rural workers continue to suffer for lack of daily bread.