O PRONAF como política pública para a redução da pobreza no meio rural: avanços e desafios

Abstract

In Brazil, at the end of the 1990s, the debate on the socioeconomic development of family farming gained importance, measured by production capacity, food security and reduction of rural exodus in the field. The main public policy aimed at this segment is PRONAF. Family farming represents the majority of rural establishments, employs most of the labor in the field, absorbs a small percentage of rural credit and contributes significantly to the value of agricultural production in the country. It is composed of a minority of family producers capitalized and integrated into the markets for inputs and products and by subsistence farmers, characterized by the production of food for self-consumption and by the small capacity to generate a monetary surplus. The objective of the thesis is to understand the importance of PRONAF for the strengthening of rural development for subsistence agriculture. For this purpose, secondary data from the demographic and agricultural censuses made available by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), of the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply (MAPA), among others, were used. The bibliography used focuses on works that address the main policies to support rural development for family farming, and on rural sociology that emphasizes the research of variables such as labor relations, access to land and social inequality. Data on PRONAF were obtained from the website of the Central Bank of Brazil, especially from the publications of the Rural Credit Manual and the Statistical Yearbook of Rural Credit. It is concluded that the social and economic development of subsistence agriculture, both in Minas Gerais and at the national level, depends on the integration of PRONAF's rural credit policy with other agricultural, agrarian and social policies, such as land redistribution, rural education, technical assistance, marketing support, improvement of rural infrastructure and technology diffusion, among others. PRONAF, due to its capillarity, ends up playing a complementary role to the Social Security system (social security and income transfer programs), by promoting the financial stability of the beneficiary, also reflecting in the increase of productivity and food security in the field.