ABSTRACT
In the spring of 2006, the smell of smoldering soybeans lingered in the air above Rondonópolis, an agroindustrial town in the state of Mato Grosso, Brazil-widely considered the “soybean capital of the world.” Farmers had dumped thousands of tons of the beans in the streets and set them ablaze to protest market conditions that threatened their livelihoods. Th e trouble began in 2005 as soy prices dropped, oil prices rose (and therefore also the cost of agrochemicals and transportation), the dollar fell against the Brazilian real, and interest rates remained stubbornly high. In June of that year, a tractorcade (tratoração) descended upon the Brazilian capital city of Brasília as farmers from the central-west region-predominantly from the state of Mato Grosso-turned to the federal government to bail them out of an increasingly insurmountable fi nancial crisis. During the soy boom of the mid-1990s, many farmers had taken out massive loans (some underwritten by the government, some not) for machinery, land, and production costs. While some of this debt was held by the federally fi nanced Banco do Brasíl and some was subsidized under specifi c government programs,1 the vast majority was and continues to be held by private companies. During the demonstration, farmers drove tractors down the capital’s central promenade, prominently displaying signs proclaiming “Financiado,” meaning “fi nanced,” to indicate that these were machines on which they were still making payments.
