Expansão da fronteira agropecuária do oeste paulista para a Amazônia: a trajetória das famílias Ometto e da Riva e a colonização do norte mato-grossense

Abstract

The expansion of the agricultural frontier towards West of Brazil, began with the its discovery in 1500. After the search for pau-brasil, was implanted by the Portuguese in the Northeast regionthe production of sugar derived from sugar cane. In the southeast region, how the production of cane sugar did not right, the occupation came through of the flags. The phenomenon continued westward with the discovery of gold and the capital accumulation arising of coffee. Later, about four and a half centuries after the discovery of Brazil, the federal government encouraged the occupation of the Amazon, first in Vargas, 1930, with the March to the West and in a second stage, already in the 1960s, with the tax incentive policy, coordinated by the military government and brokered by SUDAM, that privatized forests, delivering them to the capitalist South Central, especially the from São Paulo. One of these capitalists, pioneers in receiving tax incentives, was the Ometto family who set up an empire through sugarcane mills around the interior of São Paulo. The Ometto family was partner of Ariosto da Riva in the enterprise called Agropecuária Suiá-Missú S / A, located in the then district of São Félix do Araguaia, in the municipality of Barra do Garças. Ariosto daRiva sold his share to Ometto Group and acquired land to the north of Mato Grosso, promoting private colonization in the city he called Alta Floresta. In both cases, the conflict of interests between those who already were installed or came to install in the Amazon region later, with the of the capitalists who have to be the owners of the land, was inevitable. Social tensions occurred and lasted for decades, and developmentalism speech used to occupy the region promoted the unsustainability, making it happen impacts social, environmental and cultural difficult of being reversed.