The Brazilian territory occupation dynamics presents patterns defined by literature as "fronts". A previous process refers to an Agricultural Frontier characterized by the transformation movement towards its using form, based on new technologies implementation. This study aimed to understand the recent sugar cane expansion process in the Goiás State, Brazil, assuming that the sucroalcohol sector progress represents a new stage in the Agricultural Frontier expansion. Cartographic products, as well as data on sugar refineries supplied by the Brazilian Ministério da Agricultura, Pecuária e Abastecimento, which were manipulated with the aid of the GIS ArcMap 9.2 and statistically treated by the Excel's charts editor, were used. This study was based on the sugar cane expansion pattern representation between 2005 and 2010, besides the discussion on sugar refineries location, concerning their current spatial pattern. Finally, the soil use dynamics between 2002 and 2009, focusing on the sugar cane implementation areas, was evaluated. The data allowed to deduce that the Goiás State takes part in this new Agricultural Frontier expansion process, in which, opposing what is politically stated, the expansion occurs mainly on Savannah and consolidated agricultural areas towards a center-southeast axis, which represents the same Agricultural Frontier expansion in the 1970's, especially with grains, particularly soybean.
Sugar cane; spatial expansion, Savannah
