Elementos para pensar a transição agroambiental: as lógicas da mudança técnica na agricultura familiar

• Main Author: Luciano de Almeida
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Universidade Federal do Paraná 2006-01-01
• Series: Desenvolvimento e Meio Ambiente
• Subjects: family farming; technical changes within agriculture; logic of management.
• Online Access: http://ojs.c3sl.ufpr.br/ojs2/index.php/made/article/viewFile/11889/8378
• ISSN: 1518-952X; 2176-9109

This paper discusses logics employed in the technical choices made by vegetable farmers in the municipality of Colombo, Paraná. Some practices for intensifying production that are developed through conventional systems as well as the techniques that are employed in more conservationist systems, such as those involving the reduced use of pesticides and fertilizers and organic agriculture are analyzedhere. Economic, socio-cultural and environmental dimensions are emphasized as factors that determine farmers’ choices. In Colombo, the combination of depleted soil and conventional agricultural practicesprevail. Intensive use of soil and of chemical fertilizers and pesticides generate harsh environmental impact. Farmers have their technical choices based on a set of constraints and opportunities indicated by the market, by the community or reference groups. They are all connected through family, through the physical environment, through technical strategies and through institutions and services related to the management of natural resources and the generation and socialization of technical knowledge. It is within this complex and dynamic context that farmers seek a direction, guided by their own practical logic to get used to those technical options and make decisions on how to manage natural resources. In the face of diverse sources of information, daily practical needs and a series of opportunities and constraints, farmers preserve their own field of autonomy in which they develop processes of elaboration and filtering. With such integration into the market, economic and instrumental logic take on an ever-increasing importance. Notwithstanding some resistance, economic and market dimensions prevail, crystallized in efforts to maximize production and earnings. Socio-cultural values associated with family farming, such as security and autonomy, also emerge as other constitutive elements of the logic that is put into practice.