Trajetórias geográficas das usinas de açúcar em Alagoas

Abstract

From a general framework of the sugarcane agro industry in Alagoas, we tried to analyze and understand the main changes that occurred during the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century, which focused on the geographical distribution of sugar mills in the territory of Alagoas. The examination of this process initially points to a concentration of sugar mills in the mesoregion of Eastern Alagoano, precisely in the geographic microregion of The Alagoas Forest, which is geographically the first area of occupation in the territory of Alagoas. Currently, we observe an important territorial dynamics still in progress in the State, which is the transfer of the productive axis of the traditional sugarcane region, to the microregion of São Miguel dos Campos, mainly due to the closure of power plants. The basic assumption is that this process of axis transfer begins through business strategies and federal financing in sugarcane agro industry development programs, such as IAA, (1933); PLANALSUCAR, (1971); PROALCOOL, (1975), which constitute as determining factors to the new productive axis of the State, with the necessary machinery and equipment facilities. The challenge of the new productive axis is how to get around the crisis caused by the covid-19 pandemic, in a national economic scenario that has presented negative employment balances by sectors of economic activities since 2014. In Alagoas, initial data on the impact of the pandemic in 2020 indicate that the trade and services sector was the most impacted, while the agro industry showed higher sugar sales, resulting in higher export values to the state, on the other hand, data on the fluctuation of formal employment in 2020 present negative balances for the sugarcane industry worker.