Agroecology, Public Policies and Labor-Driven Intensification: Alternative Development Trajectories in the Brazilian Semi-Arid Region

Paulo F Petersen,Luciano M Silveira

doi:10.3390/su9040535

Abstract

The institutional recognition obtained by family farming in Brazil over recent decades has translated into the launching of a broad and diverse set of public policies specifically aimed towards this sociopolitical category. However, the design of these policies was heavily influenced by the productivist bias derived from the agricultural modernization paradigm, making the sector increasingly dependent on input and capital markets. In this same movement of institutional evolution, policies consistent with the agroecological approach created new margins for maneuvering for development trajectories founded on the use of local resources self-controlled by rural families and communities. Taking as a reference the recent trajectory of rural development in Brazil’s semi-arid region, the article analyses the role of the agroecological perspective in the strategic combination between territorially endogenous rural resources and public resources redistributed by the State. Based on the analysis of the economy of agroecosystems linked to two sociotechnical networks structured by contrasting logics of productive intensification, the study demonstrates agroecology’s potential as a scientific-technological approach for the combined attainment of various Sustainable Development Goals, starting with the economic and political emancipation of the socially most vulnerable portions of the rural population.

Highlights

The quarter century spanning from the beginning of Brazil’s return to democracy, especially following the proclamation of the 1988 Constitution, and the abrupt end of the Dilma Rousseff government in 2016 marked a period of innovation in the institutions linked to rural development in the country
Taking as a reference point the recent dynamics of rural development in the Brazilian semi-arid region, a process promoted by a new generation of public policies, this article seeks to show how the strategic combination of resources endogenous to rural territories and public resources redistributed by the State has favoured the unfolding of agricultural intensification trajectories that organically articulate economic production with ecological reproduction
By employing public resources redistributed by the State predominantly to the expansion of the self-controlled resource base at the level of the agroecosystems and rural communities, the agroecology networks help strengthen the territorial economies through investment in qualified labor informed by contextualized knowledge [13]

Summary

Introduction

The quarter century spanning from the beginning of Brazil’s return to democracy, especially following the proclamation of the 1988 Constitution, and the abrupt end of the Dilma Rousseff government in 2016 marked a period of innovation in the institutions linked to rural development in the country. One decisive element in this process was the inclusion of the family farming in the ‘social pact’, which authorized the launch of public administration policies and instruments targeted at this sociopolitical category, previously pushed to the margins of the Brazilian State’s interests. These institutional advances, which brought Brazil widespread recognition during the International Year of Family Farming in 2014, should be understood as the end result of a long historical trajectory of struggles and demands pursued by rural social organizations and movements [1]. It was only from 2003 onward, with the political priority given by the Lula government to eradicate hunger in the country, that a broad and diverse set of official initiatives created an institutional environment more favorable to development and to the public expression of the family farming’s contribution to society as a whole

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