Large‐Scale Mechanized Soybean Farmers in Amazônia: New Ways of Experiencing Land

Abstract

Abstract The arrival of mechanized agriculture in the Amazon heralds a new landscape and a novel set of experiences related to the landscape. The social implications of this change are profound. The colonist and Caboclo small‐scale farmers who are being replaced by the expansion of mechanized agriculture had a particular set of relationships with the land, relationships that differ from those found on large‐scale mechanized farms. For mechanized large‐scale farmers, the creation of an idealized agricultural landscape and the way that land use is planned result in a bifurcated experience of place that reinforces the separation of large‐scale farmers from feedbacks related to the local agricultural and environmental conditions.