Marginal lands or marginal people? Analysing key processes determining the outcomes of large-scale land acquisitions in Lao PDR and Cambodia

This chapter aims to overcome the gap existing between case study research, which typically provides qualitative and process-based insights, and national or global inventories that typically offer spatially explicit and quantitative analysis of broader patterns, and thus to present adequate evidence for policymaking regarding large-scale land acquisitions. Therefore, the chapter links spatial patterns of land acquisitions to underlying implementation processes of land allocation. Methodologically linking the described patterns and processes proved difficult, but we have identified indicators that could be added to inventories and monitoring systems to make linkage possible. Combining complementary approaches in this way may help to determine where policy space exists for more sustainable governance of land acquisitions, both geographically and with regard to processes of agrarian transitions. Our spatial analysis revealed two general patterns: (i) relatively large forestry-related acquisitions that target forested landscapes and often interfere with semi-subsistence farming systems; and (ii) smaller agriculture-related acquisitions that often target existing cropland and also interfere with semi-subsistence systems. Furthermore, our meta-analysis of land acquisition implementation processes shows that authoritarian, top-down processes dominate. Initially, the demands of powerful regional and domestic investors tend to override socio-ecological variables, local actors’ interests, and land governance mechanisms. As available land grows scarce, however, and local actors gain experience dealing with land acquisitions, it appears that land investments begin to fail or give way to more inclusive, bottom-up investment models.

As lavouras de grãos como atividades de desenvolvimento e integração da Região da Grande Dourados ao circuito produtivo nacional

Led to become a national productive Center, the Great Dourados Region, which consists of 40 cities located in the south of the state of Mato Grosso do Sul - Brazil, emerged as a grain productive region from the middle of the 1970s in the 20th century to the beginning of the 21st century. Using modern agricultural techniques, the land organization in this region was ruled by a development policy which was not concerned with the socio environmental aspects of the area. In this context, the present work aims to analyze the development process of the Great Dourados region, through soybean production and its relation to the confinement of the indigenous people present in the Area. This integration happened due to the money and for it, inserting this Region into a national productive pattern which guided the farmers to modern crops, mainly soybean. The land cultivation was not the only productive activity that granted the Region an economic integration, to both the national and international market. From the end of the Paraguay War (1870) to the middle of the 70s, there were at least two other ways to the regional economic integration. One of them happened with the traditional activities of cattle raising and the extraction of the Paraguay tea (maté/ Yerba Mate) from 1870 to 1937, which divided the regional territory into large farmlands focused on the external market. The other way happened with the need to create a market for the agricultural production and for the demand for manufactured goods, which reorganized the regional territory into small farmlands, as a result of colonization projects from 1943 to 1956. Since 1976, with the creation of the Special Program for the Development of the Great Dourados Region (Prodegran), the capitalist relations of production, which were consolidated in the area, were not ruled almost exclusively by the traditional activities of cattle raising and the extraction of the Paraguay tea, in order to create a new accumulation center connected to the modern crops. As this new accumulation center was created, the Region was led to a selective and dependent integration process, in which many farmers changed their accumulation centers to modern grain crops, causing environmental degradation, productive exclusion and ethnical-cultural conflicts with the indigenous community

Pressoes e oposiçoes contra pequenos criadores familiares de gado bovino leiteiro da zona periurbana do Município de Castanhal (Pará, Brasil - Amazônia Oriental)

It is analyzed, in this paper, the conflicts involving a family of small dairy cattle breeders, faced with the opposition of society and restrictions imposed by the local authorities, against the livestock grazing on public lands in peri-urban zone of a medium-sized Amazonian city. The case study employed participant observation, interviews and document research. Despite the subordinate position occupied by the focused group in the credibility hierarchy of versions issued on the conflict, the group maintains a resistance conduct, based both in the need for sustenance, and in an attempt to preserve a way of life cherished by its members

Pressoes e oposiçoes contra pequenos criadores familiares de gado bovino leiteiro da zona periurbana do Município de Castanhal (Pará, Brasil - Amazônia Oriental)

It is analyzed, in this paper, the conflicts involving a family of small dairy cattle breeders, faced with the opposition of society and restrictions imposed by the local authorities, against the livestock grazing on public lands in peri-urban zone of a medium-sized Amazonian city. The case study employed participant observation, interviews and document research. Despite the subordinate position occupied by the focused group in the credibility hierarchy of versions issued on the conflict, the group maintains a resistance conduct, based both in the need for sustenance, and in an attempt to preserve a way of life cherished by its members

As lavouras de grãos como atividades de desenvolvimento e integração da Região da Grande Dourados ao circuito produtivo nacional

Led to become a national productive Center, the Great Dourados Region, which consists of 40 cities located in the south of the state of Mato Grosso do Sul - Brazil, emerged as a grain productive region from the middle of the 1970s in the 20th century to the beginning of the 21st century. Using modern agricultural techniques, the land organization in this region was ruled by a development policy which was not concerned with the socio environmental aspects of the area. In this context, the present work aims to analyze the development process of the Great Dourados region, through soybean production and its relation to the confinement of the indigenous people present in the Area. This integration happened due to the money and for it, inserting this Region into a national productive pattern which guided the farmers to modern crops, mainly soybean. The land cultivation was not the only productive activity that granted the Region an economic integration, to both the national and international market. From the end of the Paraguay War (1870) to the middle of the 70s, there were at least two other ways to the regional economic integration. One of them happened with the traditional activities of cattle raising and the extraction of the Paraguay tea (maté/ Yerba Mate) from 1870 to 1937, which divided the regional territory into large farmlands focused on the external market. The other way happened with the need to create a market for the agricultural production and for the demand for manufactured goods, which reorganized the regional territory into small farmlands, as a result of colonization projects from 1943 to 1956. Since 1976, with the creation of the Special Program for the Development of the Great Dourados Region (Prodegran), the capitalist relations of production, which were consolidated in the area, were not ruled almost exclusively by the traditional activities of cattle raising and the extraction of the Paraguay tea, in order to create a new accumulation center connected to the modern crops. As this new accumulation center was created, the Region was led to a selective and dependent integration process, in which many farmers changed their accumulation centers to modern grain crops, causing environmental degradation, productive exclusion and ethnical-cultural conflicts with the indigenous community

Pressoes e oposiçoes contra pequenos criadores familiares de gado bovino leiteiro da zona periurbana do Município de Castanhal (Pará, Brasil - Amazônia Oriental)

It is analyzed, in this paper, the conflicts involving a family of small dairy cattle breeders, faced with the opposition of society and restrictions imposed by the local authorities, against the livestock grazing on public lands in peri-urban zone of a medium-sized Amazonian city. The case study employed participant observation, interviews and document research. Despite the subordinate position occupied by the focused group in the credibility hierarchy of versions issued on the conflict, the group maintains a resistance conduct, based both in the need for sustenance, and in an attempt to preserve a way of life cherished by its members

As lavouras de grãos como atividades de desenvolvimento e integração da Região da Grande Dourados ao circuito produtivo nacional

Led to become a national productive Center, the Great Dourados Region, which consists of 40 cities located in the south of the state of Mato Grosso do Sul - Brazil, emerged as a grain productive region from the middle of the 1970s in the 20th century to the beginning of the 21st century. Using modern agricultural techniques, the land organization in this region was ruled by a development policy which was not concerned with the socio environmental aspects of the area. In this context, the present work aims to analyze the development process of the Great Dourados region, through soybean production and its relation to the confinement of the indigenous people present in the Area. This integration happened due to the money and for it, inserting this Region into a national productive pattern which guided the farmers to modern crops, mainly soybean. The land cultivation was not the only productive activity that granted the Region an economic integration, to both the national and international market. From the end of the Paraguay War (1870) to the middle of the 70s, there were at least two other ways to the regional economic integration. One of them happened with the traditional activities of cattle raising and the extraction of the Paraguay tea (maté/ Yerba Mate) from 1870 to 1937, which divided the regional territory into large farmlands focused on the external market. The other way happened with the need to create a market for the agricultural production and for the demand for manufactured goods, which reorganized the regional territory into small farmlands, as a result of colonization projects from 1943 to 1956. Since 1976, with the creation of the Special Program for the Development of the Great Dourados Region (Prodegran), the capitalist relations of production, which were consolidated in the area, were not ruled almost exclusively by the traditional activities of cattle raising and the extraction of the Paraguay tea, in order to create a new accumulation center connected to the modern crops. As this new accumulation center was created, the Region was led to a selective and dependent integration process, in which many farmers changed their accumulation centers to modern grain crops, causing environmental degradation, productive exclusion and ethnical-cultural conflicts with the indigenous community

Reference list of sources used for two experimental data files dataBSRN and dataMixed

Increasing amounts of data is collected in most areas of research and application. The degree to which this data can be accessed, analyzed, and retrieved, is a decisive in obtaining progress in fields such as scientific research or industrial production. We present a novel methodology supporting content-based retrieval and exploratory search in repositories of multivariate research data. In particular, our methods are able to describe two-dimensional functional dependencies in research data, e.g. the relationship between ination and unemployment in economics. Our basic idea is to use feature vectors based on the goodness-of-fit of a set of regression models to describe the data mathematically. We denote this approach Regressional Features and use it for content-based search and, since our approach motivates an intuitive definition of interestingness, for exploring the most interesting data. We apply our method on considerable real-world research datasets, showing the usefulness of our approach for user-centered access to research data in a Digital Library system.