A agricultura familiar da associação dos pequenos produtores rurais do Vale do Gameleira no município de Ponto Chique - Minas Gerais

Abstract

Currently Brazil occupies a privileged position in the food productionarea, the country has the capacity to meet domestic demand and sell the surplus to other countries. Brazilian agriculture and livestock sector has modernized and reached a wide production generating wealth. However, the investments made in the field in Brazil did not happen in an egalitarian way, provoking great social inequalities, drawing a different profile for each region, due to its history, characteristics and opportunities of public policies access. Thussmall producers, even having access to a small piece of land, did not have public policies that favored their production or maintenance of land. This situation lasted until the 1990s and only then did the Brazilian Government establish measures that contributed to the development of Family Agriculture and the maintenance of man in his place of origin. However, there is controversy over the scope and equity of these public policies. In this sense, one of the fundamental points to be discussed is to know to what extent the benefits offered by public policies reached all unrestrictedly. The general objective of this study is to analyze the extent to which public policies have really benefited family farmers, especially farmers in the GameleirasValley Small FarmersAssociation (Associação dos PequenosProdutoresRurais do Vale do Gameleiras).The association composed by 21 families who practice family farming, which is established in the municipality of Ponto Chique-MG. To do so, we used as a methodology, first the bibliographic research on the subject studied, in which the concepts of public policies, family agriculture and multifunctionality were contextualized. After this, a field research, data collection and tabulationwas done. Fieldwork was carried out on semi-structured interviews that enabled the information collection and provided the particularities of the family farmers of the Gameleiras Valley associatesrecognition, allowing us to understand the extent to which public policies allowed these families permanence in the field, In addition to discussing the role of rural associations as a new way of organizing and strengthening family farming.