Energy supply and agricultural specialisation in the settlement frontiers in Southern Amazonia [Approvisionnement energetique et specialisation agricole des regions pionnieres: L'Amazonie meridionale]

International audienceAs the Brazilian energy sector is deregulated, a combination of economic and geographical approaches points up the influence of energy policies on the expansion into the frontier south of the Amazon as a periphery of the economic centre of Sao Paulo. While the role of electricity in agricultural development remains marginal, the remoteness of markets adds a strategic dimension to the price of petroleum fuels: the mitigating effect of rate equalisation on cost-distance is sufficient if the agricultural specialisation is soya bean rather than corn. However, the privatisation of the colonisation process has deprived small-scale colonists of the benefits of the transfer of resources offered by the rate equalisation: forced to regress to primitive forms of power, they are unable to establish themselves permanently