From subsistence to financial asset: the appropriation of the Brazilian Cerrado lands as a resource.

This article proposes a typology of the appropriation as a resource of the Brazilian Cerrado lands, from subsistence to local peoples, to the current attempt by institutional investors to transform it into a financial asset, without disregarding its use as a source of power and accumulation by large capitalist farmers. Any product of a relationship mediated by the technique between a particular agent and a specific natural matter is considered as a resource. Until 1970s, Cerrado lands were used almost exclusively as a means of subsistence by peasants and indigenous populations. Since then, under a violent expropriation process, land has become a resource for capitalist accumulation and patrimonialist power for large immigrant farmers, with the expansion of the agricultural frontier. In the 21st century, with land grabbing process, the arrival of representatives of international financial capital has made the strategies of appropriation of Cerrado lands even more complex by considering them as financial assets. These different perspectives of using land as a resource increased the number of conflicts and contradictions with profound negative effects on peasant communities in agricultural frontier areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]