De ecosistema a socioecosistema diseñado como territorio del capital agroindustrial y del Estado-nación moderno en el valle geográfico del río Cauca, Colombia

Since the 1950s, the geographical valley of the Río Cauca has undergone a process of transformation due to the continual expansion of the agricultural frontier, dedicated to sugar cane, that monopolizes this vast territory. Today, there are thirteen sugar plantations located in the valley. They are distributed across the region. The central argument of the present article is that this process of transformation was intentionally directed by the agents of private agro-industrial and land-holding capital, who, interested in promoting this agricultural activity, managed to co-opt the institutions of the state to conduct this territorial project. These were private actors who, becoming public agents, participated in construction of the regional state. The geographical valley of the Río Cauca extends from the north of the Department of the Cauca —to be exact, from Santander de Quilichao— and passes through the Valle del Cauca to the Department of Risaralda. It is a territory of agro-industrial capital and of the modern nation-state that shows processes of accumulation through dispossession and social and environmental despoliation, both of human communities and of the living system in general (animals, plants, and diversity). The increase in the cultivation of sugar cane displaced peasant communities, established a regional model of intermediate cities, and eliminated the ecological particularities of the inter-Andes valleys, such as the presence of important wetland ecosystems in which important biological variety is found. This is territory designed based on a discourse on regional development in which the three fundamental principles of Law 388 of 1997, found in article 2, which concern the social and ecological functions of property, the predominance of general interests over special interests, and the equitable distribution of burdens and benefits, seem not to have been applied. O vale geográfico do rio Cauca experimenta, há um tempo, sobretudo a partir da década de 1950, um processo de transformação devido à expansão incessante da fronteira agrícola, dedicada à cana-de-açúcar, que conseguiu monopolizar todo esse vasto território. Hoje, assentam-se sobre esse vale 13 engenhos de açúcar distribuídos por toda a região. O argumento central do presente artigo baseia-se em que esse processo de transformação foi conduzido, de modo intencional, pelos agentes do capital privado agroindustrial e pelos proprietários de terra que, interessados em promover essa ativida