The Water Frontier: Agribusiness vs. Smallholder Communities in the Brazilian Cerrado

Résumé En

Agro-industrial expansion in the Brazilian savannas (the Cerrado) is associated with deforestation and land conflicts, but its relationship with water issues remains under-studied. Drawing on the basin trajectory approach, we explore the transformations in water usage and water policies over the past 20 years, as well as the divergent explanations for water scarcity in the Corrente River watershed (western Bahia). We identify a process of basin closure: Soybean farmers exploit growing volumes of surface and groundwater for centre-pivot irrigation, while, in smallholder communities located downstream from the plantations, long-established gravitational irrigation systems are declining. The volume of water licensed to agro-industrial companies grew by 431% between 2013 and 2021. During a phase of 'water abundance' and poor hydrological knowledge, water pumping relied on the deregulation of state environmental policy. Since the water scarcity phase, starting in 2015, the irrigator-farmer group has had to face growing protest from social movements and warnings from the scientific community. Its narrative, focused on climate change and the spatial dislocation of the problem (from upstream to downstream), helps to disclaim responsibility for water scarcity. This controversy over the causes of water scarcity, added to the fragility of instruments of social participation, may explain why supply augmentation is still the main response of the state for coping with basin closure.