Caminhos e descaminhos de desenvolvimento social e econômico – análise do espaço geográfico de Cachoeira do Sul-RS

Abstract

This work presents a bibliographical and empirical dialectic study about the social and economic development of the geographic space of Cachoeira do Sul-RS, from a local-global perspective, especially in the period 1970-2018, under liberal rule. For this, subsidized by a vast theoretical foundation, there was the conceptual discussion about development and its theoretical aspects in the world and in the Brazilian context.Dialectically, they were lifted up social data and economical officials - employability, income generation, schooling, population dynamics, economic structure, land use - that sought to diagnose the reality of the municipality, sometimes in comparison with other cities (Bento Gonçalves, Caxias do Sul,Lajeado, Santa Cruz do Sul and Venâncio Aires). This survey demonstrated the worrying economic fragility of Cachoeira do Sul, with low employment and income generation, and also demonstrated an important migratory phenomenon in the decades from 1970 to 2018, distinct from the other cities surveyed.To illustrate the economic fragility of the city, there was also the analysis of the basic consumption of the product supply in supermarket chains in the city, which exposed the low consumption of local products, the penetration of several products from neighboring cities and the presence about 40% of foreign products no perishable. By those information, it was analyzed the land structure of the municipal district and the supposed strength of his main economical head office, the soy, researching the effects of that culture in the geographical space of Cachoeira do Sul.To this end, it was concluded that soybean cultivation has been promoting land concentration in the last decades, with land leases and acquisitions, foreignising the production process and increasing external dependence, generating few jobs, reducing food production, repelling people, and causing various environmental damages, without even the taxation due to the culture, with the Kandir Law, which causes concentration of capital, social segregation and remittance of profits abroad, reducing the capacity of municipalities and producing states to give account of their social responsibilities.This dynamic is supported by hegemonic discourses of powerful agents such as politicians, media, business associations, which has determined the use of geographic space according to their interests and privileges.But not without provoking the contradiction of union organizations, family farmers and sustainable farmers, unemployed or underemployed, entrepreneurs, academics, youth, who witness the impacts of this spatial dynamics.In view of this, the resistant forces of the municipality are organized and seek new alternatives such as sustainable agriculture and small farms, agro-industrial enterprises that add value to the production chain, the industrial recovery, investments in research and development, even rowing against the tide.