SOCIAL IMPACTS: EMPLOYMENT IN IRRIGATED FARMING IN GUAÍRA COUNTY

Abstract

This study analyzes the interaction between the use of technology of irrigation and the composition of the seasonal labor in the County of Guaíra, São Paulo State, Brazil, during the 80s. The study points out that the process of modernization of the Brazilian agriculture was developed upon the adoption of technologies that caused seasonal labor and also caused changes in thes same process. A case study was the method used. The central hypothesis is that the more the number of labor daily journeys is increased, because there is more than one crop a year, the more the irrigation contributes to reduce the seasonal labor. The perspective of this reduction and the kind of employee that it benefits, depend on other factors; in other words, as the irrigation makes possible more than one crop a year, it is also able to create more direct jobs. Nevertheless, the majority of jobs created are temporal ones, and the number of direct jobs also created has a narrow relationship with the kind of product cultivated, use of land, irrigation system adopted and the extension of the irrigated area. The temporal employee in this context is the beneficiary.