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Reclaiming the Cerrado – A Territorial Account of a Disputed Frontier [Introduction]

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posted on 2025-01-29, 11:43 authored by Lídia Cabral, Sérgio Sauer, Alex Shankland

As global agri-food systems come under increasing stress, debates on their future have become highly polarised, exposing fundamental differences in understandings and priorities: industrial production versus traditional rights; short-term yields versus longer-term sustainability; cheap versus healthy food. Brazil is at the core of these debates, with the Cerrado being centre stage since the soybean-powered Green Revolution. Accompanied by deforestation, soil degradation, and depletion of water resources, Brazil’s agricultural production frontier has now moved northwards into the Matopiba region. This issue of the IDS Bulletin explores the ongoing territorial transformation, considering the violent logics of extraction in frontier zones, the grabbing of nature, and the dynamics of resistance in local and international spheres. Exposing both the material and discursive appropriation experienced by the Cerrado, this issue profiles it as a key site of multi-scalar injustices against people and nature that need to be addressed by efforts to secure more just and sustainable agri-food systems.

History

Publisher

Institute of Development Studies

Citation

Cabral, L.; Sauer, S. and Shankland, A. (2025) 'Introduction: Reclaiming the Cerrado – A Territorial Account of a Disputed Frontier', IDS Bulletin 56.1A: 103–17, DOI: 10.19088/1968-2025.113

Editors

Melissa Leach Ian Scoones

Series

IDS Bulletin

Volume

56

Issue

1A

Version

  • VoR (Version of Record)

IDS Item Types

Article

Copyright holder

Institute of Development Studies

Language

en

IDS team

Rural Futures

Pagination

103–117

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    Volume 56. Issue 1A: Environmental Change, Development Challenges – Revisited

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