Agricultural modernization, employment and rural exodus in Brazil – the 80’s

The paper examines the effects of the significant changes in Brazil’s agriculturalpolicy during the 1980s, on the ability of its modem agricultural areas to generate jobsand to retain rural population. This was done by identifying large zones of rapid agriculturalexpansion and modernization, and observing the changes in the decade, in agriculturalemployment and in rural population. It was possible to establish that the areas of modemagriculture in the country’s Center-South region, and in the savannas (“cerrados”) of theCenter-West, either generated very little employment, or experimented declines in agricultural manpower. Moreover, the rural population of all these areas experimented reductions. Inthe Center-South the declines were quite substantial but even in the “cerrados” there weresignificant reductions. Therefore, to the contrary of what one might expect from the changesin agricultural policy brought about by the crises of the 1980s, Brazil’s agriculture continuedto expel rural manpower and population. However, in the period this expulsion was moreselective, being restricted mainly to de dynamic agricultural areas. In the rest of the country,to the contrary of what took place in the 1970s, rural emigration was either small, or therewas retention of population. In fact, this contrasting pattern of migration made it possiblean overall abatement in Brazil’s rural migration in the 1980s. JEL Classification: Q15; R11; O13.