Expansão de grandes empresas agroindustriais para a região centro-oeste : um estudo de caso.

Abstract

Large agroindustrial firms that operate in Brazil seem to execute a new planetary disposition when they decide to expand their activities to frontier regions. The expansionist movement of Pioneer Sementes, a transnational company, to Planaltina (Federal District) is part of a much larger migratory movement of large agroindustrial brazilian firms or foreign capital firms that open new industrial plants in frontier regions.This study sought to rebuild the economic logic of the choice of the area for this expansion of Pioneer Sementes, based on the analyses of the enterviews with the firm’s executives who participated on the process of choosing the new place and, beyond that, make a comparison with the theoretical available framework on economic geography. The decision to expand activities of a firm and build a new production unit in a different region of the country involves the analyses of available market opportunities, economic restrictions, environmental, infrastructural and others. Firstly, market-related incentives may arise, based on maintenance of competitiveness. Secondly, the difficulties linked to the process of choosing the new place for the settlement of the new unit, its restrictions and the plurality of geographical options available. Thirdly, as being already a part of the process of choosing the place of settlement of the new production unit, different factors may arise that restrict even more the expansion, but that are equally important when it comes to deal with a firm that produces items related to agricultural activities. The study also makes, whenever necessary, comparisons between the results of the interviews and the theoretical framework. The results point to the fact that although the executives responsible for the choice of the place of settlement of the new unit possessed relevant technical and market-related data they could never anticipate the behavior of institutions.