The soil (un)protection in Goiás: a case study of the Quirinópolis microregion – GO

Abstract

From the 1970s, it starts in the state of Goiás an intensification process of the agricultural frontier expansion stimulated by government policies. The entrance of sugarcane in the state is related to favorable geoenvironmental conditions for its cultivation, highlighting the southern mesoregion of Goiás as the most important producing region of the state, in which is inserted, among others, the Quirinópolis microregion. Within this context, this article sought to analyze the discrepancy between land use and land use capacity in this region between 2004 and 2010, contrasting the result obtained with the legislation in force at the time analyzed. The realization of this study, comparing the data before and after the entrance of sugarcane allowed to identify the abrupt expansion of sugarcane and the inadequacy of the soil of the microregion for this cultivation, especially due to the use of high technified processes that result in predictable environmental impacts. When analyzing these results in parallel with the legislation in force at the time, it is possible to perceive the mismatch between legal forecast and the effective protection of the soil, mainly due to the absence of specific laws aimed at the protection of this natural resource and the shallow way that the soil is considered in the other laws studied.