O avanço das sementes dos monopólios e a destruição das cultivares crioulas como uma das faces da acumulação primitiva na atualidade: um olhar para o contexto do semiárido alagoano

• Ano de defesa: 2025
• Autor(a) principal: Santos, Flávio dos
• Orientador(a): Campos, Christiane Senhorinha Soares
• Tipo de documento: Tese
• Tipo de acesso: Acesso aberto
• Idioma: por
• Programa de Pós-Graduação: Pós-Graduação em Geografia
• Palavras-chave em Português: Geografia agrícola; Geografia econômica; Bancos de sementes; Sementes – Comercialização; Agricultura e Estado; Capitalismo; Agronegócio; Monopólios; Camponeses; Regiões áridas – Alagoas; Acumulação primitiva; Sementes Crioulas; Estado; Semiárido alagoano; Mercado mundial de sementes
• Palavras-chave em Inglês: Primitive accumulation; Creole Seeds; State; Alagoas semiarid; World seed market
• Palavras-chave em Espanhol: Acumulación primitiva; Semillas Criollas; Semiárido de Alagoas; Mercado mundial de semillas
• Área do conhecimento CNPq: CIENCIAS HUMANAS::GEOGRAFIA
• Link de acesso: https://ri.ufs.br/jspui/handle/riufs/24135

Primitive accumulation, formulated by Karl Marx, describes the historical movement of dispossession that separated workers from the means of production and paved the way for the rise of capitalism. Although it is usually associated with the period of origin of this system, it is not a phenomenon confined to the past: it is a process that renews and updates itself as capital reorganizes its strategies to expand its domains. Anchored in the debate on the relevance of the concept of primitive accumulation to analyze certain processes of capital expansion, we embarked on an investigation of the global seed market, a sector that moves billions of dollars annually and that has imposed control over an essential element for humanity: the seed. Through this market, capital has found a mechanism to expand its domination over agriculture, attacking traditional cultivars, suppressing historical conservation practices, and imposing dependence on rural communities. This scenario has materialized in the semi-arid region of Alagoas, where the advance of seeds controlled by global monopolies has caused profound transformations in the labor relations and social practices of rural communities, configuring new processes of dispossession. In this context, this study aims to analyze the advance of monopoly-controlled seeds in the semi-arid region of Alagoas and their impacts on traditional seeds, demonstrating how this process constitutes a contemporary manifestation of primitive accumulation. To achieve this goal, the research adopts a qualitative-quantitative approach and is grounded in the historical-dialectical materialism as its epistemological foundation. The investigation focused on the semi-arid region of Alagoas, with special attention to the Rolas Community, in the municipality of Pariconha, where preliminary studies revealed significant changes in farmers’ relationship with seeds due to the offensive of conventional and transgenic cultivars. The study identified three central dynamics in the advance of monopoly seeds in Alagoas: (1) public seed distribution policies; (2) genetic contamination affecting traditional maize cultivars; and (3) the specific case of Rolas, where the substitution of traditional varieties by transgenic maize has taken place, driven by the expansion of irrigation systems made possible by the arrival of the Canal do Sertão. The results show that these processes are clear expressions of primitive accumulation. Genetic contamination has stripped farmers of their traditional seeds, eroding a genetic and cultural heritage built over generations. The replacement of traditional cultivars with transgenics in Rolas has created dependency on corporate seeds, intensified pesticide use, and altered work relations and local ways of life. Meanwhile, public seed distribution policies adopted by the Government of Alagoas have functioned as a mechanism that favors agribusiness corporations, strengthening the private seed market and weakening farmers’ autonomy. Faced with this scenario, the data and analyses developed in this research lead us to conclude that the advance of monopoly-controlled seeds in the semi-arid region of Alagoas represents a current movement of dispossession and, therefore, of primitive accumulation. By removing farmers’ control over seeds and imposing products from global monopolies, these processes have reshaped social relations, eroded traditional knowledge and culture, and undermined productive autonomy.