Agricultural development on the Brazilian frontier : southern Mato Grosso

However, given the relatively elastic supply of virgin land, especially on the frontier, and the high price of biochemical substitutes for land in the form of fertilizer and fertilizer-responsive varieties, the expansion of conventional inputs is an entirely rational method to increase agricultural output. Moreover, the magnitude of this population reshuffling needs to be emphasized. The net migration to the frontier states from 1950-1970 involved 2.8 million migrants and enabled these states to expand their roles in Brazilian crop production. From 1950 to 1970 Parana increased its share of total Brazilian crop area from 8.3 to 14.7 percent, Goias from 2.0 to 5.0 percent, and Mato Grosso from 0.7 to 1.7 percent. This paper is concerned with the implications of this large-scale in-migration in Mato Grosso for agricultural development and with the rapid expansion of agricultural mechanization in this frontier area. Little substitution for land with chemical fertilizer has taken place and a final section offers some hypotheses for this.