Evolução diferenciada da lavoura de soja e de seu processamento industrial no Brasil - período de 1970 a 1999

This paper analyzes the soybean crop modernization in Brazil as well as other aspects in relation to that activity. In order to do that analysis, 1975,1980,1985 and 1995's data sets are used into the factorial analysis. The Brazilian soybean areas were divided into three groups: traditional region, Center-Western region and Northeast region. The first region comprises of four states, and the second and third regions have four and two states, respectively. Twelve variables were defined and the main component method was applied. The Center Western region shows the largest values for modernization indicators. The Traditional region lost relative importance into the soybean farming and industrial processing during the time period from 1975 to 1995, when that crop had a larger expansion in the Center-Western region. However, the Traditional region kept modernizing its soybean plantation and held the large portion of industrial processing of soybean in 1995. The Northeast region has the smallest portion of Brazil's soybean plantation, however, that region holds high level of modernization in that crop, especially in the state ofBahia