Fabricação de rapadura na Paraíba: estudo socioeconômico.

Abstract

The literature on the production of rapadura, a traditional activity developed by rural producers, indicates its small capacity to expand and / or remain in the market. Theoretically, by the logic of its development, capital, when in the process of expansion, incorporates sectors - transforming or maintaining them. This logic also explains the situation of agriculture where, In particular, there are activities where part of the costs reproduction of its workforce and provided in the "rozados", allowing the production of food and raw materials relatively low prices, favoring the accumulation of of capital in industry. The rapacious activity in the Paraíba, a concrete example of this process, the from a survey - with direct observation, application of questionnaires, interviewing - when 230 mills (57 of which make up the sample) in visit to 48 municipalities. In the region of Brejo, it can be that the space of operation of the mills was maintained until the sugar industry allowed, and to a certain extent required, the presence of the rapadureira activity, since its organization was partly due to the availability of seasonal and cheap labor, in addition to providing large parcels that of the raw material processed by mills and distilleries. THE increased demand for sugarcane, resulting from the expansion of the sugarcane, intensified the conditions of collapse of the mills that have become mere suppliers. At the Sertão, given the conditions under which the local economy is organized, where subsistence production accounts for the highest part of the reproduction costs of the workforce, the manufacturing of rapadura still has some space, despite the factors adverse effects on sugarcane cultivation. However, the system of partnership, historically predominant in the organization economy is already beginning to be replaced by forms partial wages, especially in activities where producers achieve greater monetary achievement. THE analysis of the various elements involved in the rapadureira production concluded that the differentiated forms of The advance of capital has contributed to the disarticulation of the activity in the Brejo and its persistence in the Sertão.