The Agrarian Question and Food Security

The book QUESTÃO AGRÁRIA E SEGURANÇA ALIMENTAR discusses the reverberations of the insertion of capitalist practices and relations of production and labor in agriculture and, consequently, in food. Based empirically on field research carried out in the municipality of Nepomuceno-MG, one of the largest coffee producers in Brazil and the world, the work addresses the subordination of agriculture to the capitalist mode of production. Adhering to neoliberal logic, municipalities whose economy is based on agricultural production develop monoculture practices, which significantly reduce the diversity and quality of the food grown and consumed. In addition, the deleterious consequences of the spread of urban-industrial inputs, such as pesticides and transgenic seeds, in the production process are discussed, leading to contamination of the environment, food and human beings. As a consequence of the subsumption of agriculture to capitalism, the share of land rent and surplus value appropriated by capitalists has increased and food security has decreased, harming both producers and consumers.