A produção do tabaco pela agricultura camponesa na Comunidade de Linha Piquirí, Prudentópolis (PR)

Abstract

The main objective of this research was to analyze the tobacco production system, emphasizing the relationships between producers and agroindustries in the community of Linha Piquirí, one of the rural communities of the municipality of Prudentópolis, Paraná, Southern Brazil. In this purpose, a brief historical rescue was made on the insertion and production of tobacco in the state and in the municipality mentioned. The research was carried out from a bibliographical survey on the subject and field work for in situ analysis of tobacco cultivation. Interviews were conducted with the farmers and employees of the companies that work in the community, in addition to participant observation. Factors such as profitability, the ease of obtaining inputs, transportation and the certainty of commercialization have caused tobacco to replace traditional crops in several areas of the south of the country. Contradictory, while revealing the subordination of peasant agriculture to the hegemonic economic model through the relationship with the agroindustry, tobacco production also contributes to the permanence of the farmers in the field since it uses the family labor and allows obtaining of significant income. Organic tobacco production, while bringing greater economic returns and reducing contact with agrochemicals to farmers working with this production system, does not alter the subordination relationship between them.