Mudanças e adaptações na agricultura familiar, estudo de caso em comunidades rurais de Juína, Mato Grosso

• Main Author: Marion Daugeard
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Confins 2017-12-01
• Series: Confins
• Subjects: Juína; Mato Grosso; family farming; living conditions; adaptation.
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/confins/12516

In the context of climate change, in parallel with the emergence of environmental issues, family farming is given a new role: promoting sustainable development. Since the 1990s, projects and research have multiplied in Brazil underlining the difficulties of family farming in maintaining itself, reflecting a lack of incentives and support. In Juína, municipality of Mato Grosso, institutional actors are concerned about the “fragility” of family farming. This work seeks to question and characterize the current situation of farmers from their point of view. The research was conducted in communities in the periphery of Juína. In the initial planning of the city, these communities had to make a public “garden” developing horticulture, annual and perennial crops. Changes were noticed in the profile and practices of farmers through a general context of socio-economic aspects at a municipal and properties scale. From the interviews conducted in 74 properties in April and May 2015, it was noticed that the fragility of family agriculture needed to be put into perspective taking into account the variety of farmers’ profiles and nuanced in the light of better living conditions. Nevertheless we evidenced the difficulties and the lack of public policies aiming at strengthening family agriculture considering its diversity and heterogeneity.