Análise do comportamento e distribuição geográfica da fruticultura no estado do Maranhão

Abstract

Brazilian fruit farming is one of the most diversified in the world, and the area under fruit cultivation in the country exceeds 2 million hectares, generating significant results in terms of job creation in the field, in agribusiness, and throughout the entire production chain. Among the Northeastern states, Maranhão has great potential for the fruit farming sector, where the crops with the greatest potential are native ones (açal, bacuri, buriti, and pequi), but fruits such as banana, pineapple, watermelon, cashew, and even grapes can present large productions and stand out. In view of this, this study aimed to analyze the behavior and geospatial distribution of fruit production in Maranhão between 2000 and 2020 and its importance for the state's agribusiness. To this end, an exploratory and bibliographical research was carried out, with qualitative and quantitative analysis of the data, through existing material, consisting mainly of books, periodicals, news, among others. In which, much of this data was obtained from IBGE publications through the Agricultural Census and Municipal Agricultural Production (PAM) for the years 2000 to 2020. The results showed that, among the fruits produced in the state, banana, watermelon, pineapple, coconut, mango and passion fruit are the most produced crops and that, in general, the production curves of all the fruit trees analyzed were in a decreasing position, showing that over the years, Maranhão fruit farming has been reducing its production areas and, consequently, the amount of fruit produced. Trying to answer the reason for this decrease, it can be assumed that: this decrease is due to some factors such as the lack of investment and incentives aimed at the development of this sector and/or was caused by a reduction in the prices of these products, causing a discouragement to production. Furthermore, it was also observed that there are no studies that characterize the commercialization of fruits in the State, which means that these fruits do not have a defined market