ABSTRACT

Agronomists and policy makers have proposed no-tillage practice and advocacy in the tropical savannah (Cerrado) of Brazil as a model for agriculture elsewhere. Building from intensive research with Embrapa and ethnographic research with two communities of transnational soy farmers, this paper explores the origins of no-tillage farming in the state of Paraná and the adoption and exploitation of no-tillage by large-scale farmers in the Cerrado of Brazil’s center-west. The spread of no-till was made possible by farmer innovation in Paraná, scientific research adapting the practice to the tropics, and and heavy application of chemical herbicides to control weeds without manual cultivation and intense soil fertility amendments in order to make the Cerrado productive for industrial agriculture. Small-scale Mennonites in the state of Goiás adopted it as an emergency measure to save their land base and compete with neighboring Brazilian farmers; large-scale family farmers from the U.S. adopted no-till to save on labor expense and reduce their liability in the face of labor laws. This indicates that while no-till in Brazil reduces soil erosion and is not a problem in itself, it emerges from a context of socio-technical fixes and its implementation supports farm profitability and agricultural expansion in the Cerrado.

摘要

农学家和政策制定者已提议在巴西热带大草原（塞拉多）进行免耕实践和宣传，作为其他地方农业的典范。基于与 Embrapa 的深入研究和与两个跨国大豆农民社区的人种学研究，本文探讨了巴拉那州免耕农业的起源以及塞拉多省大型农民对免耕技术的采用和开发。巴西的中西部。免耕技术的普及得益于巴拉那州农民的创新、将这种做法应用于热带的科学研究、以及大量使用化学除草剂来控制杂草，无需人工耕种和强烈的土壤肥力改良，从而使塞拉多（Cerrado）成为可能工业化农业。戈亚斯州的小规模门诺派教徒将其作为一项紧急措施，以挽救他们的土地基地并与邻近的巴西农民竞争；来自美国的大型家庭农民采用免耕方式，以节省劳动力费用并减少他们在劳动法面前的责任。这表明，虽然巴西的免耕减少了水土流失并且本身不是问题，但它出现在社会技术修复的背景下，其实施支持塞拉多的农场盈利能力和农业扩张。