The explosion of Chinese demand for animal feed in the first decade of the 2000s launched Brazil onto the global stage as the granary of a world now of emerging countries in transition to a diet based on animal protein. At the same time, as a driver of renewable energy in the form of sugarcane-based ethanol, Brazil presented itself as a model of green development for African and Central American countries. It was argued that this huge expansion of its agricultural commodity exports would be achieved in a sustainable manner compatible with the preservation of the Amazon forest, based on the sugar industry's commitments not to enter the Amazon region, and the ‘Soy Moratorium’, signed by global trading companies and international NGOs, not to accept soybeans from deforested areas in the Amazon region, a commitment subsequently extended to cattle ranches with the signing of the Cattle Pact (Wilkinson and Herrera, 2010).

This image of Brazil as a global agribusiness powerhouse is in stark contrast with the vision of an urban-industrial Brazil under the hegemony of the São Paulo bourgeoisie that was consolidated throughout the 20th century (Mello, 1982; Castro and Souza, 1985; Tavares, 1998). It also contrasts with the view widely disseminated in literature and academia of a backward rural world dominated by large properties in the form of unproductive latifundia that also oppressed indigenous peoples and small producers (Guimarães, 1968) and that, in its most recent expression, would have been responsible for the progressive destruction of the forests and biodiversity of Brazil's biomes (Heredia et al, 2010).

There are two contrasting lines of analysis on the evolution of the dominant actors of the agri-food system in Brazil that help better to explain the economic and political centrality of Brazilian agribusinesses in the 21st century, even if, as we will see, both fail to integrate in their analyses a vision of urban-industrial Brazil. These two trends were born in the academic environment of São Paulo, the country's economic centre.

The first line of interpretation was elaborated at the Institute of Economics of the University of Campinas (Unicamp) with a fundamental focus on the transformations in agriculture resulting from the development of domestic input (chemical and genetic) and agricultural machinery industries.