The debate around the Brazilian agrarian issue was historically marked by the presence of different actors and discourses that, for the majority, assumed opposing positions and practices. Specifically, the agrarian reform policy of the 1960s, one of the main historical milestones of this issue, was also developed in the midst of this discursive plurality, which then became two specific discursive orders: the pro-reform discourse and the agricultural modernization discourse. From this conflict resulted different agrarian policies inserted in a socio-historical and political context, highlighting those directed to the rural exploration of savanna. In this sense, the present study aimed to understand the discursive representations and reveal ideological elements present in textual discourses and uttered by governmental implementers of the expansion policies of the agricultural frontier for the Brazilian savanna and beneficiaries of the Directed Settlement Program of Alto Paranaíba (PADAP). Through the analysis of the representational meaning from Norman Fairclough’s discourse theory, it was possible to identify the representations involved in the formulation and implementation of this policy, highlighting the hegemony of agricultural modernization inculcated in statements that justified a priori agrarian reform.