The escalation of the transformation of land functions into a financial asset in the MATOPIBA region, Brazil (1970–2022)

Abstract

Agricultural modernization in Brazil has promoted profound socioeconomic and environmental transformations, beginning in Southern Brazil and progressively advancing across the Cerrado biome, between 1970 and 2022, especially from the second half of the 20th century onward, with strong encouragement from the federal government. In the country’s most recent agricultural frontier – the MATOPIBA region, which includes parts of Maranhão, Tocantins, Piauí, and Bahia – the Brazilian State’s delayed and selective involvement contributed to the intensification of land grabbing and the massive influx of foreign capital, turning land into a financial asset sought after by large international corporations. This article aims to analyze the logic of territorial occupation in MATOPIBA, highlighting the impacts of land financialization on its social, ecological, and productive functions. The methodology was based on a critical literature review, analysis of official documents, and interpretation of satellite imagery and vector data from MapBiomas Collection 8. The results are organized into four axes: the erosion of the social function of land under capital-driven logic; the shift from land as an object of human appropriation to a threatened ecological support; the financialization of land and its conversion into a speculative asset; and MATOPIBA as a concrete expression of territorial transformation driven by global agribusiness. It is concluded that land, as a financial asset, intensifies land concentration, marginalizes family farming, and expels rural populations, leading to urban inequalities and the worsening of food insecurity.