Análise multivariada de dados socioeconômicos: um retrato da modernização agrícola no Rio Grande do Sul

Abstract

The process of modernization of Brazilian agriculture sparked by military administrations had a strong intervention by the State through farm policies. As seen all over Brazil, as well as in Rio Grande do Sul (RS), this technological evolution did not happen in an uniform way in Brazilian agribusiness. The regions that explored dynamic and potential revenues generating products were able to get, especially in the period of broad and subsidized credit, a higher economic dynamism. So the use of two multivariate statistics tools – Factor Analysis and Cluster Analysis –, made possible the rating of the cities of the agricultural Regional Development Councils (COREDEs) of Rio Grande do Sul about their degree of modernization in the 1995/96 period. Taking into account cross-section census data, from the Agricultural Census of 1995/96 by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE). In Rio Grande do Sul, the stage of agricultural modernization of the analyzed period points to a strong concentration of modern agriculture and animal husbandry in the group made up by the cities of the Western Border COREDE. The other clustered cities did not show a local pattern of clustering. However, group 2 has a steadier situation, and group 3 showed signs of transition from a more traditional agriculture to a differentiated pattern, characterized by innovation. Revealing a fourth group with the worst degree of agriculture modernization of the State, without intensive exploration of the area destined to livestock and, in the wake of its high size, in need of special attention to explore possible potentialities, aiming to point to a pattern of traditional agriculture.