Megaprodutores: uma nova categoria nos sistemas agroindustriais brasileiros

Abstract

The objective of this work was to characterize the Megafarmers, identifying them as a new category in Brazilian agroindustrial systems, given that this set of farmers have been treated in a segmented manner by the financial market. The study also describes the strategy that originated the Megafarmers, identifies the reasons for its implantation, verifies how the Megafarmers differentiate from other kind of farmers and analyzes if they can be sub-segmented into new categories. Furthermore, this study analyzes its investor profiles. The analyses are conducted under the scope of Agroindustrial Systems Approach. The concepts related to the evolution on agricultural markets, the structure-conductperformance model and the importance in analyzing individual strategies were developed in the theoretical reference. The concepts regarding segmentation strategy, private banking market and investor profile analysis were also developed. To reach these objectives, data collection was done using qualitative and quantitative approaches. The qualitative approach, performed by means of semi-structures interviews, consists of a case study to describe the analyzed strategy and its origin. The quantitative approach used the logistic regression technique to verify the distinction between Megafarmers and other farmers and used cluster analysis to verify heterogeneity. The results allow to identify the characteristics of the Megafarmers and show the reasons that led to its creation. The results also allow the verification that Megafarmers present characteristics that distinguish them from other farmers, confirming that they can be considered a new category in Brazilian agroindustrial systems. The investor profile analysis enabled the first diagnostics of this type with Brazilian farmers and indicates their behaviors in relation to the risk. Identification of heterogeneity between the Megafarmers was also enabled, providing a new suggestion of typology for this set of farmers. In conclusion, Megafarmers can be considered a new category of farmers. These results represent an important development on the state of the art of researches on typology and classification of farmers and of studies on investor profiles in Brazil. Such results also point to the emergence of a new field of studies, related to Megafarmers, and contribute for the improvement of public strategies and policies directed at Brazilian agroindustrial systems, credit markets and private banking market. Finally, suggestions for future studies are made, to which it is expected that this work has given subsidies.