Headnote
ABSTRACT
Introduction: It can be seen that the consequences of the modernization of Brazilian agriculture, stemming from the Green Revolution, have led to a scenario in which there are various environmental, social and economic impacts that have harmed many family farmers and, in particular, rural youth. It is clear that the same problems experienced in the past are part of youth today.
Objective: The objective of this study is to verify the main socio-environmental and economic impacts of the attempt to modernize agriculture in the Brazilian reality.
Theoretical Framework: It is based on the theoretical debates on the impacts of the modernization of agriculture in Brazil.
Method: In order to explain this problem, the methodological decision was to carry out this study using a bibliographical, exploratory and basic method with a qualitative approach. The techniques used to collect data and information were direct observation and a literature review. Content analysis techniques were used.
Results and Discussion: With regard to the qualitative results, it was found that the unequal and privileged implementation of agricultural modernization policies in Brazil and Ceará has resulted in socio-economic problems, such as the decline of the rural economy, the indebtedness of many farmers, the deterioration in the prices of agricultural products, the reduction of physical space, the dismissal of many workers and the consequent demographic swelling and slumification of cities. With regard to environmental problems, iniquitous agricultural modernization has led to the destruction of forests and genetic biodiversity, soil erosion and the contamination of natural resources and food.
Research Implications: In conclusion, it can be said that in the face of capitalist exploitation of nature and production relations, there is a need to think about a new way of structuring agricultural modernization policies from the perspective of sustainability practices.
Keywords: Agriculture, Modernization, Environment, Sustainability.
RESUMO
Introdução: Nota-se que os desdobramentos decorrentes da modernização da agricultura brasileira, advindos a partir da Revolução Verde, proporcionaram um cenário onde se observam diversos impactos ambientais, sociais e econômicos que prejudicaram muitos agricultores familiares e, em especial, a juventude do campo. Percebe-se que os mesmos problemas vividos no passado fazem parte da juventude na atualidade.
Objetivo: O objetivo deste estudo é verificar os principais impactos socioambientais e econômicos diante da tentativa de modernização da agricultura na realidade brasileira.
Referencial Teórico: Fundamenta-se nos debates teóricos relativos aos impactos da modernização da agricultura no Brasil.
Método: Para a explicitação dessa problemática decidiu-se metodologicamente por esse estudo de método bibliográfico do tipo exploratório e de natureza básica com abordagem qualitativa. Quanto às técnicas de coleta de dados e informações aplicou-se a observação direta e a revisão de literatura. No tocante às técnicas de análise, empregou-se a de conteúdo.
Resultados e Discussão: Em relação aos resultados qualitativos, foi constatado que a implementação desigual e privilegiada das políticas de modernização agrícola no Brasil e no Ceará resultou em problemas socioeconômicos, tais como a decadência da economia rural, endividamento de muitos agricultores, a deterioração dos preços dos produtos agrícolas, redução do espaço físico, dispensa de muitos trabalhadores e consequente inchamento demográfico e favelamento das cidades. Com relação aos problemas ambientais, a iníqua modernização agrícola provocou a destruição das florestas e da biodiversidade genética, a erosão dos solos e a contaminação dos recursos naturais e dos alimentos.
Implicações da Pesquisa: Em conclusão, é possível afirmar que diante da exploração capitalista da natureza e das relações de produção emerge a necessidade de pensar uma nova forma de estruturar as políticas de modernização da agricultura, sob a perspectiva das práticas da sustentabilidade.
Palavras-chave: Agricultura, Modernização, Ambiente, Sustentabilidade.
RESUMEN
Introduccion: Se puede constatar que las consecuencias de la modernización de la agricultura brasileña, derivada de la Revolución Verde, han llevado a un escenario en el que existen diversos impactos ambientales, sociales y económicos que han perjudicado a muchos agricultores familiares y, en particular, a la juventud rural. Somos conscientes de que los mismos problemas vividos en el pasado forman parte de la juventud actual.
Objetivo: El objetivo de este estudio es verificar los principales impactos socioambientales y económicos del intento de modernización de la agricultura en la realidad brasileña.
Marco Teórico: Se basa en los debates teóricos sobre los impactos de la modernización de la agricultura en Brasil.
Método: Para explicar este problema, la decisión metodológica fue realizar este estudio utilizando un método bibliográfico, exploratorio y básico con un enfoque cualitativo. Las técnicas utilizadas para la recogida de datos e información fueron la observación directa y la revisión bibliográfica. Se utilizaron técnicas de análisis de contenido.
Resultados y Discusión: En cuanto a los resultados cualitativos, se constató que la aplicación desigual y privilegiada de las políticas de modernización agrícola en Brasil y Ceará ha provocado problemas socioeconómicos como el declive de la economía rural, el endeudamiento de muchos agricultores, el deterioro de los precios de los productos agrícolas, la reducción del espacio físico, el despido de muchos trabajadores y el consiguiente aumento demográfico y la favelización de las ciudades. En cuanto a los problemas medioambientales, la inicua modernización agrícola ha provocado la destrucción de los bosques y de la biodiversidad genética, la erosión del suelo y la contaminación de los recursos naturales y de los alimentos.
Implicaciones de la investigación: En conclusión, se puede decir que frente a la explotación capitalista de la naturaleza y de las relaciones de producción, es necesario pensar en una nueva forma de estructurar las políticas de modernización agrícola desde la perspectiva de las prácticas de sostenibilidad.
Palabras clave: Agricultura, Modernización, Medio ambiente, Sostenibilidad.
1 INTRODUCTION
The modernisation of agriculture in Brazil developed from the imported ideals of the Green Revolution, with the proposal to implement modern techniques in agriculture. However, the utopian proposal of modernisation has caused impacts felt to this day, as a result of the disorderly exploitation of all forms of life. As a result of the logic implemented by the capitalisation of agriculture, with regard to social impacts there is the rural exodus, the concentration of land, the worsening of inequalities in the field and the indebtedness of many farmers. In relation to environmental impacts, there is the destruction of forests, soil erosion, contamination of natural resources and food, among others.
According to Carson (1962), as man advances in his prospects of domination, he destroys the earth and all forms of life that inhabit the globe. The externalities caused by the modernisation process lead the modern world to understand that public policies aimed at sustainability are the only possible way to mitigate these damages. The emergence of environmental conferences has become extremely important to determine the direction of sustainable ideals in the world, resulting in the configuration of policies that act in this scenario.
From the normative frameworks on the environment in Brazil, a new era of attempt to modernise agriculture and consequent socio-environmental impacts begins, which has required the government in its various spheres to formulate public policies from the perspective of sustainability, ending a long cycle of government stimuli directed only to the agrarian elite.
Indeed, the reality of Brazilian agriculture continues to present serious problems, especially in the countryside. The difficulties of permanence, the lack of government incentives and the impossibility of financing for the development of sustainable agricultural practices are examples of the multiple challenges faced by the rural population. These difficulties are expanded to other issues such as the ageing of the population, the masculinisation of the countryside, rural succession and the lack of incentives that promote the permanence and autonomy of rural youth in their territories. In this sense, it is of fundamental importance to promote sustainable development in rural areas, in addition to offering incentives that value agricultural activities and the lives of the rural population (Cavalcante et al., 2025).
2 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
2.1 MODERNISATION POLICIES FOR AGRICULTURE: GENERAL ASPECTS
The modernisation of Brazilian agriculture began in the 1960s with the importation of the ideals of the Green Revolution and consisted of the use of techniques called modern coming from the United States and Japan, which began to be widespread around the world and aimed to implement technological innovations in agriculture. In the same period, a new economic model was established in Brazil with the formation of Agroindustrial Complexes. It is also worth highlighting two basic types of technological progress in agriculture: that of a mechanical nature, which replaced labour by mechanical force and that of a biological and chemical nature, in which there is an increase in land productivity, and the interaction of these two types of innovation may also occur, resulting in a labourand land-saving effect (Madeira et al., 2019).
Literature is divided between different perspectives. Some consider this modernisation only from the perspective of importing technical-based practices, such as Teixeira (2005), to exemplify that the modernisation of agricultural production happens with the intensive use of equipment and techniques, such as machinery and modern inputs, which allow obtaining higher yields in production. So, modernisation of agriculture would be synonymous with mechanisation and the use of techniques in agriculture.
However, there is also another bias to be analysed that is presented from the perspective of how modernisation impacted all processes, including those of social relations of production. According to Madeira et al. (2019), modernisation must take into account the whole process of changes that occurred in the social relations of production. For Brum (1988), the main reasons for the modernisation of agriculture are: increased productivity in order to increase profit, the reduction of unit costs to overcome competition, the need to overcome conflicts between capital and large estates and enable the implementation of the agro-industrial complex in the country.
Thus, through a supposed conservation and fertilisation, farmers would be ready to face the difficulties imposed and would find better conditions to obtain greater profitability.
The modernisation process did not happen in a linear way throughout Brazil, with the Centre-South being the region that benefited the most. Silva (2001), says that the process of agricultural modernisation was quite different in Brazilian regions, the Centre-South quickly incorporates this process with high use of industrial inputs (fertilisers and chemical pesticides, agricultural machinery and equipment).
The technological innovations arising from the processes of industrialisation and urbanisation gave a new direction to the productive activities of Brazil. Industrialisation expanded rapidly and began to demand a restructuring of the field, since it was a source of raw material. It was necessary to prepare the field to produce for the industry and, at the same time, receive industrialised products, such as pesticides, fertilisers, improved seeds and machines (Teixeira, 2005).
The Brazilian government began to implement policies of high value rural credit and low interest rates, in order to foster the major transformations of agricultural and agricultural activities. Such state policies sought to enable the "abandonment of a sleepy agriculture of the past" and as a result to promote a new awareness in rural areas (Kageyama; Silva, 1983 apud Madeira et al., 2019).
Among the significant indicators to consider the change brought by agricultural modernisation in Brazil, there is the significant increase in the use of tractors that went from 8,372 in 1950 to 666,280 in 1985 (Silva et al., 2007). Another indicator refers to the use of artificial fertilisers and pesticides that according to Graziano Neto (1985), 2005), between 1965 and 1975 the consumption of fertilisers grew at the average rate of 60% per year, while pesticides grew at an annual average of 25%.
The growth rates of Brazilian agriculture in the period are significant. According to Rezende and Goldin (1993), Brazilian agriculture grew at an average annual rate of 4.5% between 1950 and 1965, almost 4% between 1965 and 1980 and 3.2% in the 1980s. The 1980s demonstrate the end of the so-called "economic miracle", initiating the extensive period of crisis in the Brazilian economy. The picture that presented itself in the 1980s and 1990s, for the agrarian sector, is a reduction in agricultural incentives via rural credit and an increasingly exclusionary modernisation, mainly with the introduction in isolated points of the so-called "new technologies", which were expanding in developed countries, that is, the use of information technology, microelectronics and biotechnology in agricultural production (Teixeira, 2005).
With regard to incentives and government plans for agriculture, the State starts to act with the aim of developing credit lines to improve production with the financing of infrastructure and the creation of rural assistance agencies. Programmes of direct subsidies to rural activities were also created, aiming to cheapen the purchase of inputs, through the payment of part of the price of the industrial product with State resources. In addition to credit subsidies, tax exemptions were also highlighted (Teixeira, 2005).
Among the development incentive programmes are PROÁLCOOL (National Alcohol Programme), PRONAGEM (National Storage Programme), POLONORDESTE (Northeast Integrated Areas Development Programme), PROPEC (National Livestock Development Programme), POLAMAZÔNIA (Amazon Development Programme), PROTERRA (Land Redistribution Programme and Stimulus to Agroindustry in the North and Northeast) and POLOCENTRO (Cerrado Areas Development Programme).
Between the decades of 1969 and 1979, the large volume of resources coming from rural credit contributed to an effective change of technical basis in a selective way with regard to the beneficiaries. However, in the 1980s, with the crisis faced by the Brazilian economy, the subsidised rural credit policy allowed to gather the interests of the ruling classes around the strategy of conservative modernisation of agriculture, allowing the State to reestablish its macroeconomic regulatory power through an expansionist financial policy (Silva, 1996).
2.2 AGRICULTURAL MODERNISATION POLICIES IN CEARÁ
The agricultural modernisation in the Northeast, especially in Ceará, took place in the form of different regions. Local investment was largely applied in small-scale activities, with low technological levels and competitiveness in relation to the state level (Bar-El, 2000). According to Joca (1994), the modernising policies in agriculture in Ceará during the military coup made possible the changes in labour relations, in that they allowed the enclosure of land, breaking the old form of appropriation that allowed the grazing of cattle on loose lands; the installation of an internal infrastructure to the properties, in order to guarantee them the resources, mainly water, important to their sustainability, besides the introduction of changes in the technical basis of production, such as the adoption of the plough to animal traction and, more recently, the tractor and various agricultural inputs.
According to the Agricultural Modernisation Index carried out by the authors (Madeira et al., 2019), based on the Agricultural Census of 1995-1996, it was verified that, in this period, in Ceará, low-technology agriculture predominated. To corroborate this statement, one can exemplify the use of tractors, in which only 3,264 establishments (0.96% of the total) used them on 31/12/1995, totalling 4,528 units, which demonstrates that the mechanisation of the state's agriculture is still reduced.
Regarding the use of fertilisers and control of pests and diseases, only 12.5% of Ceará establishments used fertilisers and almost 40% carried out control of pests and diseases in their crops. Regarding the livestock activity, only 29.3% of the establishments carried out disease control in their animals. In the case of technical assistance, in 1995 and 1996, only 3.8% of establishments resorted to technical assistance, and of those that resorted to technical assistance, 42.9% received technical assistance from government sources (Madeira et al., 2019).
Another analysis on irrigation identified that only 8.5% of the total establishments used irrigation techniques. The irrigated area totalled 109,000 hectares, or less than 8% of the total area in crops. It is a reduced proportion for one of the Northeastern states most vulnerable to drought (Madeira et al., 2019). In the analysis of electricity, only 28.4% of the establishments were connected to some source of energy.
In addition, the credit contemplated only 6,600 establishments in the state of Ceará, that is, less than 2% of the total declared to have taken borrowed resources for the development of their activities (Madeira et al., 2019).
The mapping of the Modernisation Index of Cearense Agriculture in 1996, demonstrates that, at the time, the municipality with the worst modernisation index was Umirim. It had only 827 agricultural establishments and had 26 tractors. Of the establishments, 342 used pest and disease control practices, 183 declared the use of electricity and only 22 declared demanding the technical assistance service (Madeira et al., 2019). Of the municipalities that had the highest rate of modernisation in 1996, there are Uruburetama and Ubajara.
In summary, it was understood that in Ceará the modernisation process took place in a very different way. According to Madeira et al. (2019), there was a difference between the municipalities that modernised with intensive use in capital, to the detriment of others that modernised with intensive use in labour, that is, still in a rudimentary way, starting from the assumption that agriculture in Ceará is still very concentrated in the hands of large landowners.
3 METHODOLOGY
The present writing is a theoretical study that adopts as a procedural method the bibliographic research from secondary sources, such as scientific articles, books and documents of the public power, aiming to bring up the subject for a necessary debate and with greater epistemological depth. This is an exploratory study of a basic nature, with a qualitative approach, using the literature review technique to collect data and information, as well as the content analysis technique, since it allows an objective, systematic and qualitative description of the researched matter (Chizzotti, 2011; Xavier et al., 2021).
It is understood that the qualitative approach allows the observation of the phenomenon in a contextualised way. The study is classified as descriptive because it aims to acclimate the reader on the theme presented. Gil (2002) points out that the social fact has elements that we can describe in qualitative terms.
When working with bibliographic and documentary research, there is the idea of similarity between the two methods. However, according to Gil (2002), while the bibliographic research uses fundamentally the contributions of the various authors on a particular subject, documentary research uses materials that have not yet received an analytical treatment, or that can still be reworked according to the objects of the research.
The research focused on the bibliographic survey aiming at the interpretation of secondary sources with greater intensity. During this period, bibliographic databases such as scientific articles, monographs, dissertations, magazines, etc. were also searched, with emphasis on recent research that details the experiences related to the theme.
For the data analysis, a descriptive and qualitative tabular analysis was carried out in this research, using the information obtained, above all, with the documents and materials analysed. This analysis has become fundamental to the understanding of the research results, becoming an important foundation of the discussion, added to documentary research.
4 RESULTSS AND DISCUSSÕES
The case of the modernisation of agriculture in the Brazilian context differs from other processes around the world, because it does not establish paths of ruptures and major social changes. It was found that certain segments of producers and products were not benefited by the "modernisation". The search to generate exportable surpluses, directed the investments to some products (Texeira, 2005).
Historically, Brazil is characterised by an inability of the national bourgeoisie to break with the agrarian elite, creating a political pact that disfavours rural development. For Balsan (2006), some impacts caused by the modernisation of agriculture are the rural exodus, structural differences, specialisation process, land concentration, income concentration, exploitation of labour, environmental problems, among others. This triggers poor distribution of land, increased social inequalities and omission of the state in the creation of distributive policies. According to Pires and Ramos (2009), the relationship of the bourgeoisie with the agrarian elite aimed to build a capitalist society, rooted in a structure of domination, in whose centre of political decision of the State, the interests of the landowner class remained rooted (Pires; Ramos, 2009).
Currently, Brazil is the largest consumer of pesticides in the world. At the national level, in 2025 the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock in the use of its attributions, published ACT No. 63, of December 30, 2024, which allows the use of 77 new pesticides. Parallel to this, the government of the state of Ceará released spraying through drones, remotely piloted aircraftor unmanned aerial vehicle, regulated by State Law No. 19,135. The problems caused by the extensive use of these products as they contaminate the soil, water, fauna, flora and cause the death and contamination of many animals, also cause chronic diseases in the population. Carson (1962), states that as man advances in his announced goal of conquering nature, he has been writing a sequence of destruction; the destruction is not only directed against the land he inhabits, but also against all forms of life that inhabit the globe.
In the face of the catastrophic environmental scenario caused by the modernisation that resulted in the collapse of the world's agricultural systems, many lands were unproductive and several pollution made the use of soil and water unfeasible, the modern world begins to talk about sustainability. By analysing the historical milestones of the debate on sustainability, it is possible to perceive the setback with regard to the norms of preservation of life and nature.
One of the first symbolic milestones of the debates involving sustainability in the environment are presented, initially, in 1972 at the Stockholm Conference, which sought to elucidate the impacts of uncontrolled and indiscriminate consumption of nature, and in 1987 with the World Commission on Environment and Development that launches the report "Our common future" with the delimitation of the first concepts on sustainable development. Our common future recognises the disparities between nations and how they are accentuated by the debt crisis of Third World countries. It seeks, however, a common ground where to propose a consensus policy, capable of dissolving the different visions and interests of countries, peoples and social classes, which shape the conflictive field of development (Leff, 2015).
The scenario in which the modern world was classified as Hybridisation of the World, in which policies are created for the technologisation of life and the economisation of nature. Other elementary conferences on environmental issues were held, among them it is worth mentioning Rio 92, which signed among the signatory countries the fulfilment of Agenda 21, which aimed, in short, to adopt methods of environmental protection and social justice. In addition to these, Rio +20 represented a significant milestone in the sustainability debate.
When resuming the scenario inherited by modernisation and the impacts of unbridled consumption on nature, it is necessary to think about another form of organisation and production. For Leff(2015), environmental degradation, the risk of ecological collapse and the advancement of inequalities and poverty are eloquent signs of the crisis of the globalised world. Therefore, it is urgent to think about sustainability that questions the rationality that validates the denial of nature in favour of economic growth. Leff(2015) states that as a result of this new perspective, a concept of environment was being configured as a new vision of human development, which reintegrates the values and potentials of nature, social externalities, subjugated knowledge and the complexity of the world denied by rationality.
Indeed, the land elites remained in the political-institutional structure, deciding the paths of the development of Brazilian capitalism. Regarding the agrarian question, the determinations culminated in the monopoly of the land and the privileges of these oligarchies, ensuring modernisation and excluding several sectors of the countryside and expropriating their lands. The picture that is formed in the Brazilian countryside is of a land structure highly based on the concentration of land in the hands of a minority, with a production aimed at export and to serve as raw material for industries, with a growing decrease in food production for the domestic market and marginalisation of small rural producers (Teixeira, 2005).
It is noteworthy that conservative modernisation in Brazil has provided a vast impact on the demographic issue, being a main vector for the expansion of rural exodus. According to Pires and Ramos (2009 p.7) "the capitalist transformation of the farm unit did not happen in a homogeneous way among rural producers, thus causing a strong expulsion of the rural man to the main national urban centres".
In this context, the exclusion of less favoured farmers is a result of the significant increase in the costs of agriculture". With the process of replacing inputs, according to Teixeira (2005), Brazilian agriculture is divided into "agriculture of the rich" and "agriculture of the poor. Thus, the dichotomy between the positive impacts on the economy and the negative externalities that affected the social and environmental spheres, results of the implementation of unequal and exclusionary modernisation. The use of modern inputs and equipment in agriculture, besides aggravating the environmental issue, contributed to the increase of unemployment in the countryside, with the transfer of the rural worker to the urban zone, causing the swelling of large cities and consequent misery of this population (Teixeira, 2005).
For Balsan (2006), the environmental impacts caused by the pattern of monoculture production were: the destruction of forests and genetic biodiversity, soil erosion and contamination of natural resources and food and socioeconomic impacts, caused by the rapid and complex transformations of agricultural production deployed in the field, and the dominant interests of the development style adopted caused social and economic results.
Thus, the transformations that occurred in the field and the public policies for the rural environment are constituted from privileges, inequalities and validation to the degradation of the environment, without considering the management, conservation and correct use of natural resources. Ehlers (1999) highlights the erosion and loss of soil fertility; forest destruction; the dilapidation of genetic heritage and biodiversity; the contamination of soil, water, wild animals, rural man and food. In summary, modernisation indicates the capacity of a social system to produce modernity and development refers to the will (Balsan, 2006, p. 128).
One of the main impacts of agricultural modernisation was the structural differences in the various rural areas of Brazil, the result of a historical process of submission of land to capital and the poor distribution of technical progress. Graziano Neto (1982) summarises that the inequality of modernisation occurs at three different levels: between the regions of the country, between agricultural activities and among rural producers.
The growth of monocultures, a result of the specialisation of agriculture is also another result that can be observed by analysing the modernisation process. For Balsan (2006), in some regions, the production of crops has been developed and modernised, which, although present in family economies, are considered typical of commercial agriculture. For Gliessman (2000, p. 35), monoculture tends to favour intensive soil cultivation, the application of inorganic fertilisers, irrigation, chemical pest control and specialised plant varieties.
Monoculture promotes the loss of biodiversity and the unbridled search for profit, creating a genetic erosion that provides multiple weaknesses, namely: environmental, economic and social. According to Balsan (2006), the most frequent environmental problems caused by the monoculture production pattern were: the destruction of forests and genetic biodiversity, soil erosion and contamination of natural resources and food. In a general scenario, there is the unregulated use of pesticides, intensive land use, social vulnerability marked by mass unemployment of rural workers, direct intervention in the seasonality of agricultural employment and extreme land concentration, leading agriculture to dependence on foreign markets.
Graziano Neto (1985), illustrates this issue of the partial modernisation of Brazilian agriculture, stating that in 1975, 85.8% of tractors were in the Southeast and South regions. Regarding the use of chemical fertilisers and pesticides, the situation is no different, focussing on these regions. While, for example, the consumption of fertilisers was on average 73.6 kg per hectare of crop in Brazil, in 1978, in the State of São Paulo the value reached 180 kg per hectare. It should also be noted that of the total agricultural credit, 78% went to the Southeast and South regions.
In relation to crops, the differences are also considerable, with a high concentration of fertiliser use in crops for export. For example, in 1977, only coffee, sugarcane and soybeans consumed 46.8% of the total fertilisers used in the country (Teixeira, 2005).
In fact, within the context of urbanisation and industrialisation in which Brazil was inserted, it was necessary to modernise the agrarian sector to control the country's trade balance. However, modernisation occurred unevenly, favouring international capital, with the participation of multinational companies, placing the Brazilian agrarian sector in a situation of subordination to the resources produced by them. When considering the central argument for modernisation, urban growth arising from industrialisation and the scarcity of food production, agrarian reform and land distribution should be considered as an elementary policy to solve the problem of raw materials and food.
The crisis of civilisation reaches its culminating moment in modernity, but whose origins refer to the conception of the world that serves as the basis of Western civilisation (Leff, 2015). Modernity accompanies the urban and rural development of the territories and to sustain this population explosion, governments promote activities to meet the great demand for food. This scenario can be seen in the United States, post-World War II. According to Moura (2009), the need arose for a greater supply of food for the North American population and for countries in need or destroyed by the hostilities of the war. Counting at the time with the availability of pesticides, especially organo-chlorinated insecticides, the United States began the abusive use of these products in the city and in the countryside, emerging, as a consequence, serious environmental and public health problems, which were not brought to the knowledge of the population. Among these products predominated herbicides, fungicides and insecticides, with high demand.
The various problems were found in the praxis of this concept because the economic system has not internalised the conditions of sustainability that require equity and social justice. In addition, the process of destruction and environmental degradation was based on the denial of cultural values and practices of traditional peoples and communities. With this, according to Leff(2015), it is necessary that there is a reappropriation of nature and the reinvention of the world; not only of "a world in which many worlds fit'", but of a world shaped by a diversity of worlds, opening the siege of the globalised ecological economic order.
Cultural values, intertwined in knowledge, ideological formations and social and productive organisation, are thus conditions for sustainable development. These forms of social cohesion and self-sufficiency allow different populations to survive today. In turn, these practices of multiple use of natural resources are reaffirming identities and rooting an environmental rationality in cultural territories for sustainable development (Leff, 2015). It is necessary to think of a sustainability process in which the community effectively exercises its rights over the development of communities, becoming elementary for a new development, contributing to a sustainable management of natural resources.
5 CONCLUSION
During the development of this research it was demonstrated that the policies of modernisation of agriculture in Brazil happened unilaterally or iniquely, that is, meeting the guidelines of capitalism without caring about biodiversity. In Brazil, the environmental theme presents its landmark in the 1930s. The Vargas government starts to regulate access to natural resources necessary for the industrialisation process, in vogue in that context. During this period, the Mining, Forestry, Fishing and Water Codes emerged. From the 1970s onwards, as a result of the pressures resulting from the Stockholm Conference, the Special Secretariat for the Environment (SEMA) was created in 1973. In addition, in 1970 the Special Secretariat for the Environment (SEMA) was created and in 1981 the National Environmental Policy (PNMA).
In a general scenario, there is the unregulated use of pesticides, intensive land use, social vulnerability marked by mass unemployment of rural workers, direct intervention in the seasonality of agricultural employment and extreme land concentration, leading agriculture to dependence on foreign markets, the destruction of forests and genetic biodiversity, soil erosion and contamination of natural resources and food. In a general scenario, there is the unregulated use of pesticides, intensive land use, social vulnerability marked by mass unemployment of rural workers, direct intervention in the seasonality of agricultural employment and extreme land concentration, leading agriculture to dependence on external markets, soil erosion, the use of pesticides in a disorderly way, ecosystem impairment, among others.
Of the different impacts, recorded in the literature, caused by the modernisation of Brazilian agriculture, we will record here the social and environmental impacts. The modernisation process, applied extensively from the 1960s, based on the Green Revolution, resulted in new forms of exploitation and new objectives, applying capitalist practices of production and management of institutional public policies that resulted in multiple negative externalities in the Brazilian scenario.
The uneven and privileged implementation of the agricultural modernisation policy resulted in several socio-environmental problems, such as the decay of the rural economy, the indebtedness of many farmers, the dispersion of thousands of farmers in search of new spaces, contributing to the swelling of cities.
Finally, it is possible to conclude by saying that when we observe the impacts caused by the implementation of agricultural modernisation in Brazil, and the form of capitalist exploitation of life, nature and production relations, the need to think about a new way of structuring public policies for the urban environment, and especially the rural from the perspective of sustainability.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We thank the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES) for the financial support through the Postgraduate Support Programme (PROAP) via PROPPG/UNILAB.
References
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